Serpentine Gallery Pavilion |Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei| 2012 -- Part II

This temporary exposition pavilion in the Serpentine Gallery that i blogged in a previous post is going to open tomorrow, it's going to stay assembled until 14th of October.


In the photo above you can see the Architects responsible for the project (Herzog & de Meuron) giving a press conference while sitting inside of the pavilion.
The mix between Portuguese cork and water is just wonderful, nature is represented here in a beautiful design.

The exhibition benches in Cork are aligned, waiting for the grand opening, while the water is already in position to reflect London's sky. 
Don't miss the opportunity to visit this amazing construction in London's Hyde Park if you have the chance. By the photos it looks amazing already!!

Over and Out!

Brooklyn Botanic Garden |Weiss & Manfredi| Sustainable Architecture

One of the main topics of my thesis research is based on sustainability, mainly because i'm working in an illegal residential area located on the periphery of Lisbon (Portugal's Capital) and the "green" is losing importance everyday. I'm trying to configure a urban plan that is supported primarily on green structures and public spaces for the local community.

That's why i'm posting this interesting project i found, a Botanic Garden located in Brooklyn City. It as been recognized by the New York City Public Design Commission with an award of Excellent Design.

Those are two of the Architectural team Renders:

This glass construction appears as a seamless extension of the existing topography, assumed as an architectural presence on the street facade transforming itself in a structured landscape when   it's spreading inside the garden. It incorporates numerous environmental sustainable features of which stand the living roof.

The curved glass walls of the Visitor Center offer veiled views into the Garden, their fritted glass filtering light. In contrast to the southern face of the building, the north side is built into a preexisting berm, which increases thermal efficiency. Its clerestory glazing—along with the fritted glass on the south walls— minimizes heat gain and maximizes natural illumination. A geoexchange system heats and cools the interior spaces, and a series of rain gardens collect and filter runoff to improve storm-water management.

The green roof will change throughout the year, literally transforming the nature of the architecture each season. 

Nearly 60,000 plants were installed around the Visitor Center, including cherry, magnolia, and tupelo trees; viburnums; native roses; and three rain gardens full of water-loving plants. In combination with the green roof, this ambitious installation seamlessly weaves the Center into the green tapestry of the Garden.

It is a perfect symbiosis between architecture and landscape and how can we use nature to benefit and maximize constructions functions and utilities.

Materials: Architectural cast-in-place concrete; curtain wall of custom-fritted insulated glass and aluminum; canopy of custom-fritted laminated glass and stainless steel, architectural exposed structural steel, custom copper roof, green roof, wood paneling milled from ginkgo trees harvested on-site; specialty acoustic ceiling and wall panels

Hope you enjoyed it. Over and Out!

Architect|ART|

I just found this picture and immediately feel in love with it, so why not share it with you? Can you imagine how boring our planet would be without Art? Architecture is just another art form, and therefore it contributes to make earth a little less grey. 

Don't be afraid to experiment, to take risks and even to make mistakes; you will have a great time in the process, guaranteed. Over and Out!

Possaco House - Comporta |ARX PORTUGAL|

I am going to show you one finalist project on the contest Building of the Year, set by the website "plataforma arquitectura". 

The studio that developed this small house, with aproximatly 200 square meters, is the portuguese ARX PORTUGAL. The intervention area is located in the village of Possanco, Alentejo (centre/interior of Portugal). 

The paradigms of traditional architecture of the region, the white walls (lime) and the roofs with two garrets were the starting point of the design. Plus the triangular shape of the lot was a big constrain regarding the roof solution. 

How to design a two garret roofing in a triangular volume?

The answer was assuming that "cut" on the lot and replicate it on the house volume, it's easy to understand this process in the models scheme below.

Another paradox that the team faced was related with the view; the most interesting one was standing north and not south, where the windows should be placed in the search for natural light. In south there were street, traffic and passers-by that the owners wanted to avoid.

The solutions were found in another traditional paradigm of the architecture: the patio.

The building response is almost exclusively based on the Alentejo repertoire; white-matter, light-shade, thickness/mass and texture.  

Tranquilizing and very inspiring vacation house isn't it? The simplicity of lines and angles is amazing, the sharp edges opposing the bucolic view is overwhelming.

Hope you enjoy it. Over and Out!

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion |Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei| 2012 -- Part I

The Serpentine Gallery is located in London City at Hyde Park, and the majority of work and exhibitions are focused on modern and contemporary art.

I am particularly interested in showing you today the temporary exhibitions that started in the year 2000 and take place every summer, inviting international worldwide architects to design a pavilion on the gallery's lawn.

Just for you to be aware of the "big names" that left their mark in this important gallery pavilions:

2000 - Zaha Hadid
2001 - Daniel Libeskind
2002 - Tokyo Ito
2003 - Oscar Neimeyer
2005 - Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto Moura
2006 - Rem Koolhas, Cecil Balmond and Arup
2007 - Olafur Eliasson, Cecil Balmond and Kjetil Thorsen
2008 - Frank Gehry
2009 - SANNA
2010 - Jean Nouvel
2011 - Peter Zumthor 

Currently at the summer of 2012 the architects that were invited are Herzog & de Meuron and the artists of Ai Weiwei, the team behind the design of Beijing's famous Bird's Nest Stadium. The connection with Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and 2012 London Olympic Games is present here. 

The theme of this year pavilion is an archaeologic dig and exploration of the past 11 pavilions. The renewable cork (proud to say that Portugal is the number one producer of cork in the world and the company responsible for the material applied on this project is portuguese and are called Amorim) clad the floor and walls, and the 12 columns are representative of the previous pavilions, including the present one. This columns will support a floating platform roof 1.4 meters above ground and will collect rainwater that will transform it in a mirror that reflects the sky. On special occasions that water can be drained to permit events.

As posted before i've been to London in March this year with my girlfriend. We visited Hyde Park and the Serpentine Gallery, unfortunately we didn't knew this pavilions only is assembled in summer, therefore we only saw the permanent exposition.

Enjoy it. Over and Out!

Arrebita!Porto - A Social Initiative

Today i would like to show you one of the brilliant fresh and young initiatives that are starting in our country, precisely in the city of Porto (North of Portugal).

The winner of the competition called "FAZ - Ideias de Origem Portuguesa", organized by two of the most prestigious foundations in Portugal, the "Fundação Calouste Gulbenkein" and "Fundação Talento" is called Arrebita!Porto.

The Jury's words about Arrebita: 

"The project that better fulfilled the competition's goals based on the criteria of originality, innovation, potential of social impact and sustainability." 

The project mission is to fight the abandonment of city inner centre, as the Censos 2011 concluded in the past decade the centre of the city of Porto lost a third of it's population. The root of the problem lies on the failure of real state market, it's not profitable to refurbish, and reverting this process is one of the goals of this initiative.

Arrebita!Porto consists in designing a new market system in which refurbishing evolves profits for all the parts of the process.  By forming a collaborative network where the value of refurbish buildings is obtain not by cash payments for services, but with the exchanges of mutual interests.

They are proud to announce that Arrebita!Porto project is able to derelict buildings money free and without any costs to the homeowner. 

How? 

Besides the homeowner the Arrebita!Porto needs the collaboration of three parties:

- International Architects and Engineering students that come to Portugal to participate in a work program and experience, gaining from the knowledge obtain by experienced masters.

- Supplier and Construction companies that donates the needed materials, equipment and services; obtaining tax benefits.

- The professors of the Technical schools that monitor and supervise the process, gaining case studies for their courses.

The project as already started in April, beginning with five international students cleaning and initiate the survey of a chosen building by the Camâra Municipal of Porto. The full rehabilitation of the derelict is estimated in two years, by that time it's possible to understand if the project works and if the process was profitable to all.

I sympathize so much with this kind of ideas, so simple, effective and bringing new energy/blood to the city, a win-win situation; the theory it's PERFECT but only time will show if  the practice really works.

More informations about this project just check www.arrebita.com  or www.facebook.com/arrebita.porto

Over and Out.

Leça da Palmeira & Barcelona Swimming Pools |Álvaro Siza Vieira|

As i am investigating about swimming pools in my research for the final thesis, i'll show two very different approaches in the theme made by the same man; Álvaro Siza Vieira.  I'm sure you all heard about him, it's the most important Portuguese Architect; winner of the 1992 Pritzker Prize, the prestigious honor in architecture.

LEÇA DA PALMEIRA 1966

Between the year of 1961 and 1966, the architect worked on the shoreline of Leça da Palmeira located in the North of Portugal. The mass of the building set below the road level, that turns the building almost invisible from the visitors approach, allowing an ininterupted sea view.  Having a simple program that contains two swimming pools, changing facilities and one cafe, the purpose was to preserve the landscape, making the minor intrusion into the existing terrain possible. 

At that time there were no topography surveys as you can imagine, so the young Architect had to do it all by himself spending weeks marking the exact location of that rock formations. This allowed him to design the project with fewer demolitions.

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BARCELONA 2005

Siza Viera's new Swimming Pool in Barcelona suburb of Cornella was a demonstration of the skills that he had gain. The construction was completed in the year of 2005 and it was a model of urban planning.

With a very different scale of the one i showed before, volumetrically is much more ambitious. Interlocking white concrete volumes; a rectangular box for the sports hall with an oval drum that incorporates the swimming pool.

The swimming pool entrance is not a normal row of doors, it has been made with two curving walls as a distortion of the circulation space. In the plan the curved lines seem random or naive to say the least, but the reality of the experience inside  shows that Siza dominates all the data of the equation, specially on where and when to introduce the light. 

The swimming pool has a shallow elliptical concrete dome with 62 circular roof lights. The progress of the sun during the day reflects off the water.

There are an indoor and an outdoor pool that are linked in an irregular shaped plan. The junction of those two is made with a glass door that can be dropped down from inside the wall like a portcullis to separate them.

The size of the outside pool is much bigger then the inside one, and the curves of it's perimeter are even pronounced.

These two projects are separated over four decades, and the difference of irreverence is notorious. In the first one the Architect was very young and it was one of his first constructed projects, i'm guessing that the invisibility applied reflects is youth. On the other hand the Barcelona complex is an attempt to conjugate all his knowledge and skills. Both are beautiful in their own way, no question about that. My personal taste goes to Leça da Palmeira but i think it's because i'm in the position Siza was seventy years ago LOL.

If you know any good project that you think i should see and post here please let me know. Over and Out!