This blog awaits the new projects from architectural offices around the world.

Architect: Alver Trummal Architects
Authors: Andres Alver, Indrek Rünkla, Ulla Mets, Tarmo Laht
Structural design: Väino Taidur
Design: 2002
Completed: 2003
Photos: Andres Alver, Arne Maasik

via Maja

The design adapts the program to a narrow and long plot, with a smooth slope, over the Atlantic shore.
Minimizing landscape impacts, and skipping the legal setback, the main volume “moulds” itself to the site’s topography through the cantilevered extension of the upper floors.

One of these projections, with near 8 meters, configures a balcony-terrace outside, hovering and opening onto the garden and the surrounding landscape. This imparts a horizontal “sliding” effect to the volumes, allowing a “de-materialization” of the house’s verticality.
On the “skin” of the building it is thus possible to understand the presence of the circulations and services that embrace, on the different floors, the central core and its structural “skeleton”.

The construction method inverts a common situation. Inside, the white architectural concrete’ stereotomy denounces the walls-beams that support the central core and extend the living room in the suspended balcony. Outside, the different plans are clad by cappotto and the alternation of colours is highlighted by the expressive game of volumes.

Finally, different openings framed by wood windows remind us of the unavoidable presence of the sea.

Nuno Grande & Pedro Gadanh

The building on the corner of Ismail Qemali and 4 Shkurti (as is often the case in Mediterranean countries) is covered with a generous scattering of air-conditioners. What to do? Pretend they are not there or use the new colour concept to authenticate the “little white parasite-boxes with round, off-center, Cyclops-eye vent”. The Virtual Air-Conditioner Concept, scatters potential sites for future climatizers across the façade, a strategy which instantly legitimises the random placement of those already in service.

The building itself is homogenised by the application of red and orange stripes faithfully scaled up from the original watercolor sketch. The resulting of the compositional middle-scale, a juxtaposing of local incident against the rediscovered total building volume, achieved an instant iconic status on the skyline of Tirana and also on the vibrant street of restaurants, cafes and bars in which it lands.

3XN is currently developing a radically daring yet surprisingly pragmatic idea. An idea that was awarded at this years MIPIM - with the MIPIM AR Future Projects Award 2006 in the category ‘Residential’…

At present, Copenhagen is experiencing rapid development. Hundreds of new apartments are being erected especially at the Northern Harbor (Nordhavnen), not far away from the city centre. This area is urged by us to develop into a playground for creative designs and new ways of perceiving the way we live.

4 organic shaped apartment towers are situated in a free, playful and humanistic urban landscape. The towers consist of elliptical floor plans creating elliptical balconies which shift position moving upwards. The result is playful in its appearance, with several pragmatic advantages too. The balcony extension to the rational building core is relatively simple and economical affordable, but has high impact on the design. The roundly shaped towers give way for a better view from each apartment, and reduce wind turbulence. Energy consumption is also minimized through the perfect balance between internal area and perimeter. The shifting of the balconies ensures a more direct experience of the sky above.

LV Hall,Omotosando Building, Tokyo, Japan. 2003

The installation celebrated the Louis Vuitton Japan’s architecture through an event which involved exhibition of architectural projects as well as performances that were developed in collaboration with artists. The design incorporates digitally responsive systems which link various sites of the exhibition in the city and brings the historic LV events and the contemporary LV sites to interact. Project was a collaboration of Homa Farjadi with Mohsen Mostafavi, who also curated the symposium.

Event occurred in conjunction with a symposium on fashion and architecture and was published in the publication of LV projects entitled Logique Visuelle’.

Project Team: Alan Dempsey, Nate Kolbe and Antonio Ramirez

The project originates from the consideration of: the existing conflict between the necessity for urban densification and the preference of most people to live in the suburbs in a one-family house surrounded by their own garden on the one hand and; the attempt to create an innovative building type which preserves the superb view - not only for the happy few who can afford to live in these towers, but also for their neighbours and the passers-by - on the other hand.

This ‘vertical neighbourhood’ is the result of different layers of living-platforms that combine the advantages of the city with the enjoyment of a beautiful and spatial landscape. Every resident has his own unique and detached living-unit / house with extremely large terraces, on his living platform – almost like in the suburbs. On one level you can find up to three of four houses, all of which have a spatial view of the city, the river Schelde, Linkeroever (the left bank), the docklands and the harbour.

This innovative filter structure, unlike a traditional block of flats, preserves the view for the surroundings. The architectural form relates to the harbour. The structure itself leans over the water such that the physical presence of the water is felt. The structure is very narrow at its base leaving a large space to the public area. This public domain can be easily linked to the existing tourist dockland circuit. Under the towers new parking facilities will be constructed. The lower part of the building can be occupied by offices. Because of its innovative approach, this design could crank up the neighbourhood as well as Antwerp as a whole.

Ove Arup & Partners from London, which were inolved in several famous international projects, will handle the engineering aspect of the project.

Living on a ‘higher level’.

eXtra-eXtra-Small House is located in Krakovo, the very centre of Ljubljana and at the same time in a historical village - once (in the Middle Ages) supplying the nearby monastery with fresh food - today highly protected historical area. The basic dimensions of the new house were already defined by law according to the volume of the pre-existing house.
The task was to integrate all residential functions in an extra small volume and to bring the sunlight to the living spaces in the ground floor through the roof openings with the in-direct sunlight, since the house faces north. The house is an urban holiday-home for a couple living in countryside.

material concept: rawness - fibre-cement panels, terrazzo, plywood, concrete - ‘béton brut’, iron, felt

design team: Aljosa Dekleva, Tina Gregoric
location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
client: private
project: 2002-2004
date of completion: October 2004
surface: 43 m2
price: 62.000 EUR
photo: Matevz Paternoster, Aljosa Dekleva