QUINTA MONROY by Elemental
To put it simply, this project is amazing. From mammoth:
Quinta Monroy is a center-city neighborhood of Iquique, a city of about a quarter million lying in northern Chile between the Pacific Ocean and the Atacama Desert. Elemental’s Quinta Monroy housing project settles a hundred families on a five thousand square meter site where they had persisted as squatters for three decades. The residences designed by Elemental offer former squatters the rare opportunity to live in subsidized housing without being displaced from the land they had called their home, provides an appreciating asset which can improve their family finances, and serves as a flexible infrastructure for the self-constructed expansion of the homes.
The first challenge that Elemental faced was a strict budgetary limit of $7500 (USD), the standard Chilean per-family housing subsidy. This subsidy would have to purchase the land, architecture, and infrastructure of the development, yet is only enough — at market-rate construction costs in Chile — to buy thirty square meters (322 square feet) of built space on such a center-city site. Because of this, social housing in Chile tends to be produced as outlying sprawl, where land can be bought more cheaply, allowing a greater percentage of the subsidy to be devoted to the architecture. Unfortunately, for reasons that are not fully elucidated in Elemental’s project description (though I am led to believe those reasons are the low value of the land social housing is usually built on and the low quality of the construction), social housing in Chile tends to depreciate in value, rather than appreciate, further miring families in poverty, as the housing subsidy is the largest single sum of aid that most impoverished families will receive from the Chilean government. If that movement could be altered — if the housing could be designed so that it appreciates rather than depreciates — it might be the difference between long-term poverty and a gradual climb towards sustainable familial self-sufficiency.
Elemental’s first decision was to retain the inner city site, a decision which was both expensive and spatially limiting: there is only enough space on the site to provide thirty individual homes or sixty-six row homes, so a different typology was required. High rise apartments would provide the needed density, but not provide the opportunity for residents to expand their own homes, as only the top and ground floors would have any way to connect to additions. Elemental thus settled on a typology of connected two-story blocks, snaking around four common courtyards, designed as a skeletal infrastructure which the families could expand over time:
We in Elemental have identified a set of design conditions through which a housing unit can increase its value over time; this without having to increase the amount of money of the current subsidy.
In first place, we had to achieve enough density, (but without overcrowding), in order to be able to pay for the site, which because of its location was very expensive. To keep the site, meant to maintain the network of opportunities that the city offered and therefore to strengthen the family economy; on the other hand, good location is the key to increase a property value.
Second, the provision a physical space for the “extensive family” to develop, has proved to be a key issue in the economical take off of a poor family. In between the private and public space, we introduced the collective space, conformed by around 20 families. The collective space (a common property with restricted access) is an intermediate level of association that allows surviving fragile social conditions.
Third, due to the fact that 50% of each unit’s volume, will eventually be self-built, the building had to be porous enough to allow each unit to expand within its structure. The initial building must therefore provide a supporting, (rather than a constraining) framework in order to avoid any negative effects of self-construction on the urban environment over time, but also to facilitate the expansion process.
Finally, instead a designing a small house (in 30 sqm everything is small), we provided a middle-income house, out of which we were giving just a small part now. This meant a change in the standard: kitchens, bathrooms, stairs, partition walls and all the difficult parts of the house had to be designed for final scenario of a 72 sqm house.
In the end, when the given money is enough for just half of the house, the key question is, which half do we do. We choose to make the half that a family individually will never be able to achieve on its own, no matter how much money, energy or time they spend. That is how we expect to contribute using architectural tools, to non-architectural questions, in this case, how to overcome poverty.
Elemental, in other words, have exploited the values and aims of ownership culture (whichmammoth has suggested understands the house to be first a machine for making money and only second to be a machine for living) not to support a broken system of real estate speculation and easy wealth, but to present architecture as a tool that can be provided to families. While the project is embedded with some of the assumptions of the architects (such as that faith in the potential of ownership culture, for better or worse), this tool is primarily presented as a framework, a scaffolding upon which families are able to make their own architecture. This seems like an important step — made visually apparent by the strong contrast between the simple lines of the initial framework and the colorful and varied familial additions — in the direction of what Lebbeus Woods describes as offering architecture as “the rules of the game”, or, the thinking he describedbehind a “capsule” which could offer architectural aid to people living in slums:
From the side of the slum dwellers, it might seem an unwelcome intrusion from outside, just another quick fix imposed by the economically advantaged on the desperately poor, serving the interests of the rich by transforming the slum according to their well-intentioned but—to the slum dweller–necessarily opposed values. It is especially important, then, that the transformative capsule enables the slum-dwellers to achieve their goals, serving their values, and does not reduce them to subjects of its designers’ and makers’ will. Inevitably, the values, prejudices, perspectives and aspirations of the designers and makers will be imbedded in the capsule and what it does. Therefore the slum-dwellers should, in the first place, have the right of refusal. Also, they must have the right to modify the capsule and its effects as they see fit. It cannot be a locked system, capable of producing only a predetermined outcome. The implication of these freedoms is that the capsule, whatever its capabilities, could be used to work against the intentions of its designers and makers. Because the effects of the capsule would be powerfully transformative, its possession would involve risk for all the groups, and individuals, involved.
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via mammoth
The Gentrification of Brooklyn by Specter
Interesting hand painted billboards made by Specter for “The Gentrification of Brooklyn” exhibition. Some are great, and some are a bit over the top.
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A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter by Caleb Larsen
A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter by Caleb Larsen is a physical sculpture that is perptually attempting to auction itself on eBay. Here is the auction, the current bid is $4,250.
Every ten minutes the black box pings a server on the internet via the ethernet connection to check if it is for sale on the eBay. If its auction has ended or it has sold, it automatically creates a new auction of itself.
If a person buys it on eBay, the current owner is required to send it to the new owner. The new owner must then plug it into ethernet, and the cycle repeats itself.
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BLOODLINE: THE SELF-CONSUMING BARBECUE PAVILION by Caroline O’Donnell
from BLDGBLOG:
In a fantastic hybrid of edible architecture and temporary summer pavilion, architect Caroline O’Donnell has proposed Bloodline, a free-standing, self-consuming grilling shelter.
Bloodline is the outcome of O’Donnell’s 2007 fellowship and residency at Akademie Schloss Solitude, a grant-making and residency institution housed in the late-Baroque “Solitude Castle” near Stuttgart in southern Germany.
Karl Eugen, Duke of Württemburg, built Schloss Solitude in 1763 as a private pleasure house—a cross between a party castle, summer retreat, and hunting lodge. Solitude was intended to be more intimate and less formal than his royal palace at Ludwigsburg, like the Trianons were to Versailles.
Among the prerequisites for an eighteenth-century aristocrat to achieve relaxation were a natural setting and, perhaps more importantly, minimal interaction with the servant classes. However, since domestic service was still required (aristocratic relaxation did not encompass preparing, serving, and cleaning up after meals, for example), palace architects had to resort to an extremely elaborate set of spatial tricks and distortions to make the servers as invisible as possible. The original design for the Petit Trianon even included a mechanism for raising and lowering the dining table through the floor so that it could be set and cleared out of sight.
According to O’Donnell, “The guides at Schloss Solitude could not understand why I wanted to see the service spaces, and tried to convince me that they were not interesting. I kept telling them in bad German that I was an architect and therefore interested in uninteresting spaces, but that seemed to cause more confusion.”
What she found, eventually, were a series of awkward and cramped service cupboards and passages, filling in the spaces around the formal, symmetrical rooms. They are the negative space of pure classical order; the banished evidence of domestic effort and bodily needs.
Interestingly, O’Donnell noticed that at Karl Eugen’s main palace, Ludwigsburg Castle, the formal rooms are arranged around the edge, concealing a rabbit warren of service spaces in the interior.
Meanwhile at Solitude, the reverse is true: the cupboards, closets, and service passages are banished to the edge, with the result that seven of the fourteen windows on the perfectly symmetrical south façade actually open onto these deformed, hidden spaces.
Among the domestic functions concealed in this way was fire maintenance: tiny fire-spaces were used for storing firewood and also enabled servants to stoke open fires while remaining behind the scenes.
O’Donnell explained that when she finally gained access to a fire-space, she noticed “the effects of this small-scale and contorted space on the body,” but she was most fascinated “by this idea of the fire-space as a window, through which the stooping servant had a rare window into the lives of his masters”—and, in some ways, a more complete or privileged understanding of the space of the palace as a whole.
So, back to the barbecue pavilion: O’Donnell’s Bloodline proposal would use 360 bags of grillholz (German barbecue wood sticks) as the cladding—enough for a summer season, or ninety barbecues at four bags per cook-out. As July fades into August, and then into September, the pavilion will gradually be dismantled: the architecture’s fiery function will lead it to literally consume itself from the outside in. This is an incredibly poetic literalization of the shelter’s function: architecture parlante at its finest.
The pavilion also plays on O’Donnell’s initial fascination with Solitude’s squished fire-spaces. Bloodline begins the summer as a perfect, platonic cube, but gradually grills itself down to an awkwardly shaped frame that mirrors a section through the original fire-space. In other words, through use, the mini-barbecue palace will reveal its contorted, service-space origins—a slow, season-long process of revelation.
Like Solitude’s original fire-spaces, which servants had to bend down and crawl to enter, the Bloodline barbecue pavilion is only designed to fit one person. And, as in the originals, that one person—the servant or barbecuer-in-chief, depending on how you look at these things—has a unique, more omniscient view.
Ludwigsburg and Solitude castles are linked by Solitudeallee, each palace is also aligned on its own axis of symmetry. When O’Donnell looked at these lines in satellite view, it became clear that there was a third axis, emerging from the forest, which was missing a castle.
Ingeniously, O’Donnell’s proposed site for Bloodline means that our barbecuing hero, standing in front of the grill-window on the southwest-facing side of the pavilion, is theonly person in their party who can see that they are actually inside the missing third castle.
In other words, while their friends and family relax in the grounds outside the pavilion, eating sausages they haven’t had to prepare, “only the servant (or grill-master) will know the truth,” explains O’Donnell, “although they can sneak others in, to share the secret.”
In terms of grilling experience, the barbecue pavilion that becomes a secret, personal castle seems second to none. “After that, the sausages are not my responsibility,” O’Donnell told me. “There are however custom spaces built into the pavilion on the west side for a fire-extinguisher and a fire-blanket, as well as a big vent on the east side that aligns with the prevailing wind and uses the stack-effect to ventilate the space naturally.”
A couple of thoughts immediately come to mind here: firstly, that this is the perfectFather’s Day gift. After all, doesn’t every red-blooded male secretly crave his own barbecue castle: a private space of solitude, unspoken power, and burger perfection?Lowe’s or Homebase could even stock build-your-own kits, for an extra DIY frisson.
I’m also reminded, via a link that was (coincidentally?) sent to me separately by Caroline O’Donnell, of Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham‘s theory that cooking is the root cause of human civilization. His basic idea is that the discovery of cooking allowed us to unlock many more calories in food, which gave us more energy for less effort, which in turn resulted in a massive increase in brain size in Homo sapiens (as compared to our primate ancestors).
That expanded brain of course led, eventually, to the flowering of the Baroque, in which rococo pleasure palaces were cleverly designed to hide any evidence of cooking facilities. O’Donnell’s pavilion gives cooking its due once again, as over the course of the summer Solitude’s missing third palace is revealed to be a a functional fire-space, rather than the abstracted perfection of a symmetrical cube. Barbecuing German day-trippers will thus be paying inadvertent homage to the role of fire in human civilization.
Caroline O’Donnell is working with Akademie Schloss Solitude to secure funding for the pavilion: the hope is to install it during the summer of 2011.
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via BLDGBLOG and Caroline O’Donnell
Interactive LED Wall by Moment Factory & PHOTONIC Dreams / La Vitrine / Montreal / Quebec
Moment Factory (momentfactory.com) developed the interactive system and designed the interactive content.
PHOTONIC Dreams (photonicdreams.com) created the original LED video wall of La Vitrine, in Montreal.
The installation includes tracking devices and low-resolution LED displays and is capable of showing many different visualizations based on the presence and movement of people.
Visitors can interact with the installation every night from 7 PM to 11 PM.
La Vitrine
145, rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, Montréal
Filmed and Edited By: Steven Bulhoes
Music by Bonobo (Sugar Rhymes) -http://www.myspace.com/sibonobo
www.momentfactory.com
www.lavitrine.com
www.photonicdreams.com
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via youtube
Snow House by Nicolas Dorval-Bory and Emilio Marin
from the designers:
LAYERS HOUSE
Nowadays, the concept of sustainability is increasingly becoming a major issue in architectural design, in a context of global warming but also exponential energy exploitation. Unfortunately, it is common to find that the answers are more in the application of techniques onto traditional architectural strategies or in developing original but formatted typologies, unrelated to the context and its inherent drawbacks and opportunities.
For the Xella house, we specifically wanted to reply to these two issues, namely creating a new architectural typology ensuing both from a technical functioning and the characteristics of the site and program. Working with the range of Xella aerated concrete blocks, we developed a simple strategy to use in the best way this material various properties.
CASE
The program is a mountain refuge, located on a steep terrain. This exemplarily functional and energetic efficient type of vernacular habitat is an indispensable reference for such a project, much more than a traditional second home in the hills. Like a refuge or a traditional châlet, our project fits into the site seeking primarily to protect itself from cold, which can be particularly strong on the hills of Santiago. The refuge, whose function is to accommodate guests engaged in winter sports during the day, has to be a friendly and warm but easy place to use, since its goal is meal and rest.
LAYOUT
Thus, the project is organized around a squared plan, allowing flexibility of use and architectural efficiency. This compact design allows a maximum optimization of the Xella blocks but also a very low coefficient of heat loss. To retain maximum heat, the house is settled the closest to the ground, with no overhang. The central courtyard is designed as a buffer space, generating a variation in the organization of the program while providing a significant supply of light and fresh air in summer. The entire house is also really thought of as a full climate. The northerly aspect (the project is located in the south hemisphere), a black roughcast coating and various passive heating devices generate a very pleasant interior atmosphere in winter. The functional distribution of spaces is organized according to the most suitable temperature for each activity, playing with the different levels allowed by the natural slope and with a concentric organization of the program.
LAYERS
This principle leads to a living room and kitchen facing due north with a large bay window, then going up the bedrooms, and in the back finally the bathrooms, due south although with high indoor temperature. The core functions are then grouped in the center of the house, which is warmer, leaving space in the east and west sides. Here, the serving stairs allow air to circulate freely. In the way of a clothe sleeve, the plan of the house is conceived as a succession of layers, which properties varies depending on the requirements of thermal insulation. Thus, the separation of bedrooms and living-room is only guaranteed by a thick felt curtain, pointing to the work and own story of Joseph Beuys, while the patio or exterior walls use various types of Xella blocks, plus a insulating and waterproof coating.
THERMAL LANDSCAPE
- To heat the house, we use two passive systems, coupled together.
Geothermal heat pump: fresh air is pumped from outside the house, south side, then it is filtered and flows through an underground pipe, warmed by geothermal energy of the ground, always around 16 ° C. In its way in, new air shares a common circuit with the extracted stale air of the house. The indoor air (+/- 19°C) then transmits its energy to the incoming fresh air (>0°C). - Trombe Wall: developed by the French engineer Felix Trombe, this system is to harness solar energy in two complementary ways. During the day, fresh air is heated by greenhouse effect between a glass wall and a dark wall. During the night, by phase shift, the heat stored in the high thermal inertia wall (double layer of block Xella 15cm) is redistributed through radiation. The system is controlled by motorized valves to prevent a reverse flow of air overnight.
Fresh air pre-warmed by the geothermal heat pump goes directly into the base of the Trombe wall to be heated. Air flows into the house from the top of the Trombe wall at a high temperature, most of the time enough to avoid the use of alternative heating systems. The air is then freely distributed thanks to the shape of the house, circulating in convection around the patio. Stale air is sucked into the bathrooms, at high humidity, and then vented outside. Along the way, this hot air will transmit its energy to the incoming fresh air but also to the jacuzzi on the terrace.
The supporting structure of the house is made out of 15 cm Xella blocks, lined with a vapor barrier and 10cm Xella panels, with a black waterproof roughcast coating to maximize solar gain and limit the accumulation of snow on the roof. The roof structure consists of wooden beams, improving inside acoustic comfort.
Sustainable house in the mountain – Architecture competition for Xella cellular concrete blocks : Special Mention (3rd Prize)
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‘Urban Umbrella’ by Young-Hwan Choi Wins urbanSHED Competition
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Department of Buildings Commissioner Robert D. LiMandri and President of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects Anthony Schirripa today unveiled a new design for sidewalk sheds – the wood and steel structures built to protect pedestrians walking alongside buildings under construction. The design of the City’s sidewalk sheds has remained primarily unchanged since the 1950s and the new design will improve quality of life, reduce construction impacts on businesses, increase pedestrian safety and increase available space for pedestrians on sidewalks. An international competition – the “urbanSHED International Design Competition” – was held to challenge the design community to create a new standard of sidewalk shed. The competition winner, “Urban Umbrella,” was developed by Young-Hwan Choi, a 28-year-old student from the University of Pennsylvania.
The winning design was selected from 164 designs submitted by architects, engineers, designers and students from 28 countries around the world (previously on Bustler). The Mayor also was joined at the announcement by Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan; Department of City Planning Commissioner Amanda M. Burden, FAICP; Downtown Alliance President Elizabeth H. Berger; and Building Congress President Richard T. Anderson.
“Yesterday in my State of the City speech I talked about the innovation and enterprise that fuels our city and today we are showing off of that entrepreneurial sprit,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Sidewalk sheds are a part of New York life, reflecting the face of a city that is constantly changing – yet the sheds themselves haven’t evolved at all during the past four decades and its time to bring them into the 21st century. The new structures will complement the City’s architectural beauty rather than take it away from it, while increasing space and safety for pedestrians and reducing the impact of construction on businesses and building owners.”
“Sidewalk sheds are installed to protect pedestrians from construction or building maintenance work, and this design is a perfect way to improve safety and the quality of life for all New Yorkers,” said Buildings Commissioner LiMandri. “This new design is great for building owners because less of your building will be hidden, and it’s great for pedestrians because there’s more space to walk, run or shop than ever before. I am confident this design will change the city’s landscape and make people fall in love with this city all over again. I would like to thank Mr. Choi for his work and all of our partners who made this competition a reality.”
“Sidewalk sheds, while necessary, hide the architectural features that make our streets so attractive and take away from what makes our neighborhoods and business corridors vibrant,” said Transportation Commissioner Sadik-Khan. “This design invites New Yorkers’ eyes back up from the sidewalk and lets them reclaim their streets even before construction is complete.”
“Design is all about rethinking what we already know,” said City Planning Commissioner Burden. “This competition created excitement amongst designers, proving that the city’s vibrant streetscape can be enhanced with a smart twist on a simple structure. This innovative new design brings both amenity and delight to pedestrians, and makes sure that New York City streets continue to be welcoming, dynamic and young.”
“The urbanSHED competition shows that good design grows out of effective partnerships among the City, the American Institute of Architects, the New York Building Congress and other groups,” said Anthony Schirripa, President of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. “As a result of this joint endeavor, the sidewalks of New York will be more pedestrian-friendly, safer and more sustainable. I thank all the designers who submitted their great ideas and all of our collaborators for joining with us to promote the power of design for a better New York.”
The new design is a significant upgrade of the sidewalk shed that is widely used around the city. The “Urban Umbrella” design will:
- Improve neighborhood quality of life with improved aesthetics and more air and natural light reaching the sidewalk;
- Reduce construction impacts on businesses and building owners through a less obstructive design that allow more of the building to be seen;
- Increase safety through a modern design that eliminates cross-bracing and exposed bolts; and
- Reduce the amount of obstructions on sidewalks, increasing space on the sidewalk to allow for more pedestrian traffic.
There are approximately 6,000 sidewalk sheds in New York City, representing more than 1 million linear feet. The Department of Buildings will approve the winning design as a new standard and encourage the real estate and construction industry to use this model in the future.
The costs for contractors to install the new design are expected to be in line with installation costs for the current design, but long term maintenance and installations costs for the new structures will be lower. The new design will not mandated, but it will be in the interest of contractors to use the new design due to the reduce maintenance costs and in the interest of building owners and affected businesses, as the new design will obstruct less of a building’s facade.
The urbanSHED competition will award Mr. Choi with a $10,000 prize, and the Alliance for Downtown New York will fund the construction and installation of a full-scale prototype of the design at a job site in Lower Manhattan.
Mr. Choi, a first-year architecture student at the University of Pennsylvania, holds a Bachelor of Architectural Engineering from Korea University in Seoul, Korea and moved to the United States in the summer of 2009. Upon being selected as a finalist, Mr. Choi teamed up with Sarrah Khan, a professional engineer, and Andres Cortes, a registered architect, of the New York-based design firm Agencie Group to further develop his shed design.
The competition was sponsored by the Department of Buildings, American Institute of Architects, Alliance for Downtown New York, ABNY Foundation, Illuminating Engineering Society New York City Section and New York Building Congress, with additional support from the Department of Transportation, the Department of City Planning and the Structural Engineers Association of New York.
The winning design was selected by a jury comprised of City Planning Commissioner Amanda M. Burden, FAICP; David M. Childs, FAIA, of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill; Craig Dykers of Snøhetta; Buildings Commissioner LiMandri; Jean Oei of Morphosis; Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan; Craig Michael Schwitter, P.E., of Buro Happold North America; Frank Sciame, CEO of F.J. Sciame Construction Co., Inc., and Ada Tolla of LOT-EK. Susanna Sirefman of Dovetail Design Strategists was the competition advisor overseeing the development and management of the competition.
During the first stage of the competition, the selection jury chose three finalists based on criteria focused on safety, sustainability and constructability. Designs were also evaluated on their use of natural light and the required electrical lighting, impact on the streetscape and pedestrian experience, and improvements to structural components.
In the second stage, the competition awarded the three finalists with $5,000 to further develop their concept. They also received recommendations from a technical advisory group of leading design and construction industry stakeholders.
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via Bustler
Foreshortened Space by Ron van der Ende
Foreshortened Space by Ron van der Ende is a series of bas-relief sculptures in salvaged/reclaimed wood.
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via Ron van der Ende
Results from 3rd Advanced Architecture Contest “The Self-Sufficient City”
Barcelona-based Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) just announced the winning entries of the 3rd Advanced Architecture Contest “THE SELF-SUFFICIENT CITY: Envisioning the habitat of the future”. The international competition, organized by the IAAC in collaboration with HP, invited architects to submit ideas which transform cities into more stimulating environments for the human life. The contest was open to architects, planners, designers and artists who aim to contribute to progress in making the world more habitable by developing a proposal capable of responding to emerging challenges in areas such as ecology, information technology, socialization and globalization, with a view to enhancing the connected self-sufficiency of our cities.
The jury presented a joint first prize to contestants “HURBS” designed by Sergio Castillo Tello and María Hernández Enríquez from Spain and “WATER FUEL” designed by Rychiee Espinosa and Seth Mcdowell from the United States.
Here are the two winning entries in detail:
Finalist “HURBS” Hybrid Human Urban Re-adaptive Bidirectionally-Relational System which proposed the creation of a participatory experiment in order to develop an urban informational system in which the citizens and experts work together to develop cities through solutions that optimize urban resources. The jury acknowledges this vision of a city as a structure which is re-informed through digital management systems.
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Finalist “WATER FUEL” which proposed the development of technologies that transforms salt water into energy, generating hydrogen in urban environments, to be utilized for transportation systems and urban consumption. The jury acknowledges this as the integration of energy production systems into an urban context and it’s ability to transform civic environments and foment the generation of energy by means of self sufficiency. These structures have been well designed and are capable of urban landscape integration.
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via Bustler
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