The FF1 Chair by Fox & Freeze

Belgian designers James Van Vossel and Tom de Vrieze have formed a creative cooperation calledFox & Freeze. Their first product is the FF1 Chair. It’s just plain hot.

From the designers:

FF1 or Fox & Freeze1 is an indoor lounge chair made out of 1 square sheet of synthetic felt. There is no loss of material (except from the drilled holes), it is not supported with wood or metal or other. The Structure is self-supporting, the flax rope contracts the chair and finishes the chair aesthetically. The shell and base are not separated from the sheet but remain connected. Starting from a square surface, the felt sheet is twisted and twisted again, just like a scarf, ending in a symmetric and but also an asymmetric object, this is literally forms follows function.

The chair is surprisingly strong, watch a video of them jumping on it – here.

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via CONTEMPORIST

EMA Haus by Bernardo Bader

Having inherited a small building plot in the town of Feldkirch close to the Swiss border, a young woman demand for a home that would perfectly fit her individual needs, without exceeding the extremely tight budget. Best possible use of space with a custom-made building was the main goal to be achieved.

With a total area of 120 sqm – including a garage (according to building code needed) – spread over 3 levels, the building occupies a minimal footprint on the plot, leaving most of the garden unaffected. The resulting advantageous volume-to-surface ratio ensures sustainable, energy-efficient and cost-effective living.

To build in the height creates the great advantage of free view in spite of expected compaction in the neighborhood. On the ground floor a “summer-studio” directly links to the garden, bath and bedrooms are located on the second floor, while kitchen, dining and living area are situated on the top floor – offering a preferred view to the Swiss mountains. The levels gain their own characteristics by the uniqueness of the windows. Varying in size and position, every opening controls and focuses the perception of the outward landscape in its own way.

Prefabricated timber-elements for walls and ceilings, being already fully equipped with technical installations and the interior panelling made from birch plywood, ensured short construction time and low building cost.

The essential aim of the project is to define a novel approach to one of the true challenges of contemporary architecture: low budget – high quality.

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via archdaily

Handmade School / Bangladesh by Anna Heringer & Eike Roswag

Context

Bangladesh is a fertile alluvial land in the Gulf of Bengal and the land with the highest population density in the world. On average nearly 1000 people live in every square kilometre and over 80% of the population live in rural areas. Much of the vernacular built tradition uses earth and bamboo as a building material, however, construction techniques are error-prone and many buildings lack foundations and damp proof coursing. Such buildings require regular mainte- nance, are often prone to damage and last on average only 10 years.

Project aims

It is particularly important to improve the quality of living in the rural areas in order to counteract the continuing popula- tion migration to the cities. The primary potential for developing building in the rural areas is the low cost of labour and locally available resources such as earth and bamboo.

The project’s main strategy is to communicate and develop knowledge and skills within the local population so that they can make the best possible use of their available resources. Historic building techniques are developed and improved and the skills passed on to local tradesmen transforming in the process the image of the building techniques.

Concept and Design

METI aims to promote individual abilities and interests taking into account the different learning speeds of the schoolchil- dren and trainees in a free and open form of learning. It offers an alternative to the typical frontal approach to lessons. The architecture of the new school reflects this principle and provides different kinds of spaces and uses to support this approach to teaching and learning.

On the ground floor with its thick earth walls, three classrooms are located each with their own access opening to an organically shaped system of ‘caves’ to the rear of the classroom. The soft interiors of theses spaces are for touching, for nestling up against, for retreating into for exploration or concentration, on one’s own or in a group.

The upper floor is by contrast light and open, the openings in its bamboo walls offering sweeping views across the sur- roundings, its large interior providing space for movement. The view expands across the treetops and the village pond. Light and shadows from the bamboo strips play across the earth floor and contrast with the colourful materials of the saris on the ceiling.

Building construction and techniques

The building rests on a 50cm deep brick masonry foundation rendered with a facing cement plaster. Bricks are the most common product of Bangladesh’s building manufacturing industry. Bangladesh has almost no natural reserves of stone and as an alternative the clayey alluvial sand is fired in open circular kilns into bricks. These are used for building or are broken down for use as an aggregrate for concrete or as ballast chippings. Imported coal is used to fire the kilns.

Aside from the foundation, the damp proof course was the other most fundamental addition to local earthen building skills. The damp proof course is a double layer of locally available PE-film. The ground floor is realised as load-bearing walls using a technique similar to cob walling. A straw-earth mixture with a low straw content was manufactured with the help of cows and water buffalo and then heaped on top of the foundation wall to a height of 65cm per layer. Excess material extending beyond the width of the wall is trimmed off using sharp spades after a few days. After a drying period of about a week the next layer of cob can be applied. In the third and fourth layers the door and window lintels and jambs were integrated as well as a ring beam made of thick bamboo canes as a wall plate for the ceiling.

The ceiling of the ground floor is a triple layer of bamboo canes with the central layer arranged perpendicular to the layers above and beneath to provide lateral stabilisation and a connection between the supporting beams. A layer of planking made of split bamboo canes was laid on the central layer and filled with the earthen mixture analogue to the technique often used in the ceilings of European timber-frame constructions.

The upper storey is a frame construction of four-layer bamboo beams and vertical and diagonal members arranged at right angles to the building. The end of the frames at the short ends of the building and the stair also serve to stiffen the building. These are connected via additional structural members with the upper and lower sides of the main beams and equipped with additional windbracing on the upper surface of the frame. A series of bamboo rafters at half the interval of the frame construction beneath provide support for the corrugated iron roof construction and are covered with timber panelling and adjusted in height to provide sufficient run-off.

Finishes and fittings

The exterior surface of the earth walls remains visible and the window jambs are rendered with a lime plaster. The framework constructon of the green façade to the rear is made of bamboo canes seated in footings made of old well pipe and with split horizontal timbers as latticework. The interior surfaces are plastered with a clay paster and painted with a lime-based paint. The ‘cave’s are made of a straw-earth daub applied to a supporting structure of bamboo canes and plastered with a red earth plaster. The upper storey façades are clad with window frames covered with bamboo strips and coupling elements hung onto the columns of the frame construction. A fifth layer of cob walling provides a parapet around the upper storey forming a bench run- ning around the perimeter of the building and anchoring the upper storey frame construction and roof against wind from beneath. A textile ceiling is hung beneath the roof is lit from behind in the evening. The cavity behind the textiles ventilates the roof space.

On-site labour using and training the local workforce

The masonry foundation was constructed by a company from the regional capital Dinajpur around 20km from Rudrapur. The earth building works and bamboo construction was undertaken by local labourers. The building techniques were implemented and developed on the job together with architects and tradesmen from Germany and Austria. 25 local tradesmen from the vicinity were trained during the building works creating new jobs and providing professional “help for self-help”.

Exemplary nature, transferability, follow-on projects

School handmade showcases the potential of good planning and design, from the arrangement of the building on the site to the realisation of aspects in detail. Furthermore it demonstrates the possibilities of building with earth and bamboo using simple methods as the continua- tion of a local rural building tradition and can serve as an example for future building developments in the area.

A stable foundation and a damp proof course are the primary technical prerequisites for building with earth, making the buildings last longer and reducing maintenance requirements. For smaller room spans, the newly developed bamboo ceiling construction can be made entirely out of local materials using handmade jute rope and bamboo dowelling.

METI, Modern Education and Training Institute

METI enables children and young people in the region to take classes up to the age of 14 and provides workshops for trade-oriented professions. The idea is to provide the rural population with access to good, holistically-oriented educa- tion. The children and young people are encouraged to develop into responsible, motivated and creative personalities and to use their skills to improve and develop their immediate rural environment. Reading, writing and arithmetic as well as languages are offered in a free environment and through open forms of learning. Meditation, dance and creative writ- ing are part of everyday learning at the METI School as are discussions, learning as part of a group and self-critical and social behaviour.

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via archdaily

Shoal Bay House by Parsonson Architects

Parsonson Architects designed this rural home in Shoal Bay on the rugged east coast of the North Island of New Zealand.

Shoal Bay is a remote settlement on the rugged east coast of southern Hawkes Bay. The building is designed to be part of the rural setting, raised off the ground and sitting beside the original woolshed, which has served the bay since the early 1900’s. The house is rugged yet welcoming and offers unpretentious shelter, it is the type of place where you kick off your shoes and don’t need to worry about walking sand through the house.

The house is formed of two slightly off-set pavilions, one housing the bedrooms and the other the main living space. Decks are located at each end of the living pavilion allowing the sun to be followed throughout the day. Sliding screens at the north-west end provide adjustable shelter for the different wind conditions, offer privacy from neighbouring campers and act as walls for outside sleeping.

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via CONTEMPORIST

Karis / Hiroshima / Japan by Suppose Design Office

The space is for shopping but also for holding events. The concept of the store is space that is changing its view or atmosphere depending on where you are standing, such as caves or limestone caves. At some points the place offers a view to the end of the store, and also it has an area surrounded by the inner partitions. The experience walking through the artificial yet random space would be close to something like walking in nature. The purpose of the design is to offer a new shopping experience that people could see products through strolling in nature.

The materials of the partitions are paper tubes that are strong and easy to work with, and moreover, they are using for tubes to roll up cloths. The tubes are layered randomly as to be uneven surfaces and create arch shapes as partition for the store.

Because of the arches, the store creates various spaces that are irregular and complex, such as caves in nature. The boutique could be used in different way with the unique characteristics of the partitions through a year. We believe that the store would be a chance to find a new and fresh relationship between people and products.

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via archdaily

GLOBAL TACOSHED / Do You Know Where Your Taco Comes From?

(please click on image above for slight larger version)

Like a culinary version of Sourcemap, Rebar has teamed up with landscape architectDavid Fletcher and some students from the increasingly interesting California College of the Arts in San Francisco to explore the ingredients of your local taco—from pinto beans to the aluminum foil it all comes wrapped in.

Our premise was that a seemingly simple, familiar food like the taco truck taco could provide visceral insight into the connections between the systems we were exploring [in our studio's investigation of the city]. By thoroughly learning the process of formation and lifecycle for what it takes to make a taco, we would be better able to propose and design a speculative model of a holistic and sustainable urban future. What resulted was a richly complex network of systems, flows and ecologies that we call the global Tacoshed.

This is a participatory undertaking; meet at the Studio for Urban Projects in San Francisco at 7pm on Thursday, February 25, to find out how you, too, can map a taco. Here’s a map.

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via BLDGBLOG

360º Kiosks by studio SKLIM

The 360° kiosks provide a minimum footprint and maximum flexibility. Each unit consists of four cantilevered units for seating, display, storage and lighting, which can be individually adapted by the actual vendors. They allow for a multitude of strategies to facilitate their commercial needs. Products are stored in drawers with shelving units that can be pulled out to maximise display surface just like a Swiss army penknife,. The constant transformations create a dynamic visual performance within the urban landscape.

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via yatzer

DIY 3-Axis CNC by Nick Santillan

from the designer:

Always wanting to experiment with CNC technology and knowing that having parts made from them can get expensive fast, I thought owning a CNC would allow me to   really experiment that would be otherwise impossible to do with outsource CNC jobs. I soon discovered some plans on how to build your own CNC. After extensive research I   bought a DIY plan and started building my CNC only to discover 90% of the way that the plan and design was not up to my expectations. The experience did give me   enough knowledge on how CNC works which I found invaluable. From there I scrapped the first build, researched some more, bought better suited parts (bearings, slides, etc)   and built this CNC using my own design and improvements.

This CNC is designed to be quickly assembled and disassembled into three main parts for ease of transportation and reduced storage. I used a moving gantry with an open   table design to have the option for the CNC to directly mill or engrave the surface below. For example, if I wanted to carve a tabletop or a wall I can bolt the CNC directly to   the surface and engrave it directly. This would have been otherwise impossible to do with other CNC machines. It also has a removable tool holder to allow customized   mounts for almost any tool needed. Currently only a plunge router is used, but the design allows a laser cutter or anything else to be quickly attached to it for future   upgrades. Some of my projects fabrication has been assisted using this CNC.

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via Nick Santillan

Jo Rin Hun / Seoul / Korea by IROJE KHM Architects

…………from the designers (sorry about the bad translation):

Reclamation of the site & Confrontation of modern and tradition

The site is located in the outer Bukchon nearby the designated cultural properties of Seoul city like rampart of Seoul. Hyehwamun, Kim Sang Hyeop’s House. Many Korean-style houses are existed till now, but remained houses are removed at that with the housing development prevalence of multi-family house last year. So it is one of the villages that are in progress of modernization and Jo Rin Hun is same case that is pressed with the high-storied neighborhood. It was a distressed situation to unavoidably remove the existing Korean traditional house as a position of culture destroyer.

Inheritance of spatial tradition & Perpendicular residence/city as a ‘village’

The character of history and place of the Korean-style house inherited spatially by composing the ‘garden’ of existing house for ‘garden’ of Jo Rin Hun. This garden functions as a spatial element that satisfies the right of sphere and ownership with the recognition that each of the household living in this house is the owner of each separate house. Many detached house composed vertically with outside-stair as a passage and the small outside space will be a ‘city windpipe’ that connects that city and architecture strongly.

Multi-function of translucent skin & Mass being un-architecturally

By incoming the neighbored landscape with the expended metal translucent board, the light, wind, sound through the small vertical courtyard surrounded by each houses are effective and forming introverted calm spatial environment. It is intended to function hiding neighborhood, filtering surrounding landscape, control of the light by me lid of the outer cover adjoins neighborhood with translucent skin.

Indistinct landscape of the village, clearly visible shape of the Korean-style house, the whole views of Seoul with Namsan tower and the festive night views were the landscape program of Jo Rin Hun. The city and architecture are endowed with strong mutual response and finally this mass become to carry the un-architectural property of matter of transparency introversion, translucence extroversion. It is intended to feel Jo Rin Hun, which is vertical and huge mass comparatively, as ‘un-architectural’ property of matter to harmonize with the horizontal stable landscape formed by the remaining Korean-style houses and to form a new city context that corresponds to the change. It lost by the shaded portion of road, right to enjoy sunshine, cultural property protection. By indoor planting to the remaining mass, It could be recognized as an ecological mass, as well as, the whole could recognized as if translucent/opaque un-architectural object are covered with expended metal and intended to grant a formable sensitivity that harmonized with the image of Korean style house to the structure of skin.

Introduction of nomadic program and nature & Reduction of construction expenses

I aimed at nature-friendship by introducing the nature positively and aimed lies latent a small and abundant spatial story by residence together with the large and small houses.

By openly establish the secret private life programs, that is, concealable action apparatus like shower, bathtub, close-stool, washstand, he/she could liberate from restraint of secrecy by him/herself and could present action of life. With the preparation to feel the instinctive pleasure in the nature that is an instinctive environment, all the action of him/herself become a sight and concerned object. So it was an interesting work to plan the ‘place’ where exist a history and story to aware of the vestige of life always.

Such program is small, but could be said it is large, because there are a lot of contributions that sensed as large space and form a various/dramatic space, reduction of construction expenses.

The construction expense is a mountain to go over. It was effective for cost administration to minimize the expenses with the effort by using cheap materials like concrete floor, wall finishing, dryvit excluded finishing materials, prefabricate sandwich panel and simplification of process.

Light-house of life

I expect Jo Rin Hun, un-architectural architecture, to be a ‘light house of city’ that always lightens the neighborhood and to be a place where record and preserve the historic character of the site.

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via archdaily

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