27 minute read
INTERNATIONAL GRANDS PRIX
International Grand Prix Architecture
Project Centre de glaces de Québec
Canada
By
Lemay & Ardoises Architecture
Québec, Canada lemay.com ardoises.ca
A State-of-the-Art Skating Rink
Sitting on the site of the former Gaétan Boucher outdoor ice rink and annexed to Sainte-Foy’s Sports Center, Québec City’s state-of-the-art skating sports installation required a sensitive approach that would promote community appropriation and user comfort.
A VERY FIRST OF ITS GENRE Designed by Lemay & Ardoises Architecture, the project contains Québec’s very first fully covered 400-meter ice rink as well as two Olympic skating rinks surrounded by a three-lane-wide and 465-meter-long athletics track.
FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION Sober and assumed, the exterior refers to the country’s nordicity and the ice’s reflection. The volume rises to reveal 360-degree window paneling allowing users to constantly be connected with the outside world and elements. Although form follows function, it also follows the site’s topography. Imposing, its shell’s scale echoes that of the nearby highway, seen through the site’s preserved embankments.
ON A HUMAN SCALE Inside, the rink incorporates a towering multimedia strip which conceals the building’s inner mechanics while lifting the bleachers. Covered in wood, this gesture contributes to bringing the project back to a human scale and directing the gaze outwards. The spaces are delicately detailed.
HIGH-SPEED SKATING Sober and assumed, the building’s envelope transposes the richness of the inner movement while exuding a skater’s dynamism, balance and speed.
International Grand Prix Architecture
Canada Québec, Canada acdf.ca
Adam & Eve’s Garden of Eden
Built in a clearing in Saint-Donat, Québec, this bright cottage is a reminder that home design goes far beyond aesthetics. It holds an exceptional opportunity to create spaces inspired by their occupants, their pasts and their personalities.
CHILDHOOD ORCHARD & BOREAL FOREST Inspired by the dense boreal forest that shrouds the flat terrain as well as by the client's nostalgia for the orchard of his childhood, ACDF Architecture designed a home centered around a solitary apple tree standing proudly in the middle of a modest courtyard.
BLACK LIMITS & BRIGHT LIGHT The volumetric concept of the country house revolves around three components. Two horizontal planes, clad in black aluminum panels, define the horizontal limits of the structure.
In the center of it all, an opening allows an apple tree to grow strongly and frames the views towards the sky and the treetops while letting light penetrate the heart of the house from dawn to dusk.
1-2-3 GO! Three wooden volumes were inserted between the horizontal planes. One of the boxes hosts the children's bedrooms and bathroom, while the second box houses the garage and utility spaces. The third box frames the master suite, consisting of a bedroom, private living room, and bathroom.
A HAPPY ENDING Obviously, all the rooms maintain strong visual connections with the outdoor natural setting as well as with the interior spaces of the house, visible from the open central courtyard where this solitary apple tree stands tall.
International Grand Prix Architecture
Project Complexe des sciences Campus MIL
Canada
By
Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux + Lemay + NFOE Architectes
Québec, Canada msdl.ca lemay.com nfoe.com
Stroke of Genius
It took three years to finalize the University of Montreal’s MIL Campus Sciences Complex. It is the largest Canadian university project. A feat of architectural excellence.
SHAPING INTERACTIONS Designed by the consortium Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux Architectes_Lemay_NFOE Architectes, this major project required a bold architectural response to create a place of synergy that supports innovation.
Thus, the design of the interior spaces borrows an architectural language which integrates openness, amplitude and transparency and shapes a place conducive to exchanges and interconnection.
MOUNT ROYAL TRIBUTE Paying tribute to the UDM, the project echoes its emblematic nearby mountains. A piece of Mount Royal is thus housed and unfolds in the form of an interior garden, located in the heart of the campus and surrounded by its library, in which mountain species of trees were planted.
AVANT-GARDE The MIL campus is one of the most avant-garde university sites in North America, both for its ultramodern Science Complex and for its eco-responsible character.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Many strategies were incorporated including LED lighting, zoning of spaces to allow for air recovery, envelope performance maximized through lab and in situ (UL) testing, 53% reduction in energy consumption compared to a reference building, as well as the use of FSC-certified wood and materials with recycled content.
International Grand Prix Architecture
Project Maison du cap
Canada Québec, Canada pthibault.com
A Never-Ending Scenery
In the heart of the Québécois forest, the Maison du cap floats and delicately overlooks the wilderness. Designed like an island on an island, the house is organized around a huge wooden terrace which opens onto the luscious nature surrounding it.
IMAGINATIVE Rectangular in plan, the house offers unusual proportions in elevation contrasting nicely with the slender verticality of the neighboring trees. The traditional doublesloped roof is revisited in a way that inverts its proportions. To this end, the owners like to repeat that the amazed shape obtained reminds them of the nearby mountain they are most fond of.
INGENIOUS Due to the high altitude and its four-sided exposure, the grounds of the house are constantly swept by strong winds. Atelier Pierre Thibault imagined semipermeable walls of openwork lattices to protect the many terraces without hindering the visual breakthroughs and the supply of light, while echoing the tight rhythm of the surrounding tree trunks. ECONOMIC Here, the interior spaces benefit from generous windows without the thermal efficiency of the house being compromised.
HARMONIOUS In this simple yet daring project, the surrounding forest and the architecture work of art become one. The selection of the exterior cladding is a good illustration of this voluntary sobriety. Covered entirely in wood, the house blends poetically into the landscape like a shadow that has delicately slipped through the trees.
International Grand Prix Architecture
Project Montauk Sofa Flagship Store
Canada
By
Cohlmeyer Architecture & Montauk Sofa
Québec, Canada cohlarch.ca montauksofa.com
Marvelously Made in Montreal
Montauk Sofa’s brand new flagship store located on Saint-Laurent Boulevard — this iconic cultural corridor affectionately called Montreal’s Main — represents a pleasant and unconventional environment, just like the unique and pleasant creations of the Montreal luxury furniture brand.
AT THE HEART OF THE COMPETITION The space needed to showcase an elegant environment in order to present the Montreal-made highend furniture. The solution? Open and well-lit exhibition halls laid out on four floors and easy and continuous circulation through the multi-leveled exhibition spaces.
INSPIRED Cohlmeyer Architecture splits the existing building in order to provide a green space between the original facade and the new facade of the exhibition space. An oasis of greenery welcomes visitors in while allowing maximum natural light to enter the interior spaces. AND THEN, THERE WAS LIGHT The rear space’s backlighting adds a touch of privacy to a space that could otherwise be colder. On the ground floor, as well as on the upper floors, the skillful play of the ceiling energizes the space without competing with the primary objective, that of showcasing the furniture of the prestigious brand.
LITTLE EXTRAS A hidden stainless steel water wall separates the elevation from the facade and is uncovered by following the water runoff. Here, each exhibition floor, including the basement, hollowed out to provide the desired ceiling height, offers views of the green garden. Marvelous!
International Grand Prix Architecture
Project Siège social de lg2
Canada
By
Provencher_Roy
Québec, Canada provencherroy.ca
The Vibrancy of Two Volumes
TWO VOLUMES The first volume, with its black, rich and glossy materiality, reflects the surrounding components, amplifying the public space and providing an interaction between the building and the movement of passers-by.
The second volume, with its textured materiality and deep, warm charcoal color, blends harmoniously with the glossy appearance. The installation of the masonry modules vertically brings, here, a contemporary and audacious touch to the building.
VIBRANCY THROUGH THE WINDOW The glass-windowed main entrance reveals the interior like a showcase. Inside, a skylight naturally illuminates the heart of the agency. Under the latter, runs a monumental staircase with the air of bleachers which creates a strong link and identity. As for the flexible and airy interior layouts, they adapt brilliantly to the new reality of hybrid work in unassigned positions.
HEAVEN FOR ALL The roof terrace, accessible from the cafeteria on the third level, is a truly elevated landscaped space that offers unique views of the city.
A GLANCE TO THE PAST Beyond a place of work, the offices designed by Provencher_Roy are intended to be a living environment where the agency’s talents feel happy and at home, where they experience pleasure in the wake of the industrial past of the famous Angus workshops. The building that houses creative agency lg2’s new head offices surprises and impresses with its two interlocking volumes, enriching, in turn, the architectural, natural and landscape heritage that surrounds it.
International Grand Prix Architecture
Project Aurora Lodge
Norway Norway snorrestinessen.com
Morning Has Broken…
The Aurora Lodge sits on over 200,000 square meters of private and protected land. Facing west, the house was built in the distant and sumptuous Norwegian Alps of Lyngen.
TOTAL INTIMACY The orientation and design of the lodge allowed for absolute privacy, with the rising sun only entering the lodge after 10 a.m. The house faces the shore and hosts a private sauna on the other side of the cove, discreetly positioned for intimacy, while enjoying spectacular views of the ocean that unfolds before.
IN PEACE WITH NATURE Here, respect and harmony with nature were vital. Thus, the main building extends over the natural plateau, just behind a single row of trees. High ceilings and glass walls invite the sky and the landscape into the lodge seamlessly. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM FRIENDS Combined with the limited logistical means and the desire to create a minimal footprint and a carbon-neutral project, this is a hybrid prefabrication of the Polar Life Haus factory in Finland. Traditional features such as a breathable building envelope have been developed whilst ensuring an amply insulated living space.
ACCOUNTABILITY Snorre Stinessen Architecture insists: The concrete used for the lodge floors is locally sourced. Being in the Arctic North, it goes without saying that the building is, of course, extremely well insulated. Here, all the constructions are based on the principles of the natural breathing of materials, like a traditional log building.
International Grand Prix Architecture
Project Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences
United States
By
Diamond Schmitt, Parkhill, MWM Architects
Ontario, Canada dsai.ca parkhill.com mwm-arch.com
The Rebirth of the Roll & Roll Bedrock
Buddy Holly Hall in Lubbock, Texas, represents a city redefining itself through collaborative design and a communityfunded commitment to the arts.
CITIZENS COMMITTED & IN CONTROL Hometown to pioneer rock and roll figure Buddy Holly and known as the original live music capital of the country, the city had lost its heart after two 1970 tornadoes destroyed the downtown core. The city’s performance venue was left in disrepair. Enter a group of citizens wanting to reinvigorate the city’s cultural dynamics and architecture team Diamond Schmitt, Parkhill, MWM Architects.
REFLECTING THE STATE’S HERITAGE The design draws influences from West Texas’ landscape. Horizontal striations running along the building’s envelope reflect the prismatic and layered rock formations of the state’s canyons. As per the building’s colors, they echo the desert plains, soil and sky, while its shapes and angles are abstractions of arroyos and other landforms.
THE SILVER LINING Targeting a LEED Silver certification, the building’s façade applies various shading approaches to counter the region’s extreme temperature fluctuations. A long overhang, angled concrete fins, and deep-set ribbon windows act as architectural drapery to cool the building and filter light without obstructing the vistas surrounding the Hall.
A NOD TO THE MIGHTY TORNADOES Upon entering the Main Lobby, one is greeted by a fourstory helical staircase symbolizing the tornadoes that swept through the city, the citizens’ energy and their commitment to the arts.
: Dror Baldinger, FAIA Photo
International Grand Prix Architecture
Canada
By
Shawn Lapointe
British Columbia, Canada henriquezpartners.com
Cool as Cucumbers in Coal Harbour!
BOARDWALKS & BOUTIQUES Cardero represents the first recent project completed along the western edge of downtown Vancouver bringing a refreshing wind of change and a new spirit to the hood and allowing for future connection to a neighborhood district energy system.
A DYNAMIC GEOMETRY Shawn Lapointe’s design responds to its pivot point location where Gastown’s old city intersects with the modern, orthogonal downtown. One geometry faces east, then rotates and fractures to take form in another geometry addressing the west.
NAUTICA, SEAGULLS & SEAPLANES The residential tower’s south and west facade sunshades are iconic, giving both practicality and a unique identity to the building. The origami-like solid plate steel galvanized and shop-painted white deeply angled V-shaped screens were inspired by their nautical surroundings—seagulls and seaplanes in the adjacent harbour and hang gliders that take flight from nearby Grouse Mountain.
THE GOLDEN TICKET The living units frame the spectacular water and mountain views of Vancouver. On-site add-ons include multi-purpose spaces, a common roof deck and urban agricultural plots. Supplementing the solar shading on the south and west elevations, features added for a LEED Gold certification include stormwater management, high performance double-glazed curtain window wall, operable windows for natural ventilation, concrete with recycled content and personalized thermal control. A golden ticket, indeed!
A modern obelisk commands attention, standing only two blocks away from Vancouver’s spectacular Coal Harbour waterfront.
International Grand Prix Architecture
Mexico Mexico chainsiman.com
A Commanding Presence on the Landscape
Set in the outskirts of popular retreat destination Valle de Bravo near Mexico City, this exquisite country house was designed to make the most of its extensive natural surroundings.
: Rafael Gamo Photo
THE MEXICAN HACIENDA CONCEPT The retreat echoes the Mexican hacienda concept consisting of pure and solid volumes and outdoor living quarters, combined to locally sourced materials and furnishings. The home consists of three main volumes covered by a tiled gable roof, supported by timber beams of varying heights and contained by stone walls that serve as interconnected partitions. All volumes are placed in such a way as to let the sun shine in as much as possible.
LET THE LIGHT SHINE IN! The space comes alive when light hits the stonework, piercing through the massive picture windows that delimit the rooms’ enclosure from the outside world while offering uninterrupted views onto the forest scenery. Opened fully by day, these windows serve to connect the outdoor and indoor living quarters seamlessly.
INSIDE & OUT While the exteriors predominantly feature stonework, the interiors showcase these same stone walls left exposed, black ironwork features, poured concrete flooring, wood of various hues and a curated art selection that give the home a contemporary and innovative twist.
WARM BY CHILLY NIGHTS The Valle de Bravo surrounding woods can get quite chilly in the evenings. The retreat’s design allows thermal and acoustic insulation, even in its large high-rise spaces with floor-toceiling windows, thanks to its hydronic heating system and multiple fireplaces.
International Grand Prix Architecture
Project Daguets
Belgique
By
Open Architectes
Belgique openarchitectes.be
Belgium Beer Time Bliss
After having lived at the rhythm of the capital, a young couple set their sights on a quiet neighborhood with trees in the heart of the Belgian countryside.
DISCONNECTING BY RECONNECTING Living in tune with life’s simple pleasure was the red thread of this architectural reflection by Open Architectes. The house sits on a long and gently sloping plot. It follows the relief and opens wide towards the nearby grove, creating an optimal connection with its surrounding nature.
GARDEN SIDE While the office and the guest bedroom are set up at the front of the house, in relation to the street, the high-ceiling living room is located at the back to enjoy the view of the garden. As for the master bedroom, it is placed above on the mezzanine and enclosed in a glass box to gain perspective towards the green space and the morning rays while maintaining privacy.
HIGH TECH, PURE & SIMPLE The envelope developed is energetically efficient thanks to its prefabricated wood structure in the workshop and injected with cellulose, its complement of wood fiber panels, its triple-glazed frames and its green roof.
NEITHER HOT NOR COLD As for thermal efficiency, the house bypasses the need for a conventional heating system. Believe it or not, only a pellet stove is needed to make chilly winter eves pleasant. And to avoid overheating on hot summer days, the lot’s large trees and an overhanging house roof guarantee sufficient shade to counter the sun’s most hot rays. Brilliant!
International Grand Prix Architecture
Canada
By
Acton Ostry Architects
British Columbia, Canada actonostry.ca
Gastown’s Rooftop Growing Toddlers
The Gastown Child Care Centre is an innovative response to an intriguing concept proposed by the City of Vancouver to develop child care centers atop underutilized parkades in the downtown core.
ABOVE CAR TRAFFIC & PARKING The compelling concept designed by Acton Ostry Architects required an equally creative design and construction response. The innovative solution laid forward features twinned, prefabricated child care facilities located at the rooftop level of two parkades, separated by an alley and connected with a series of vehicular and pedestrian bridges.
EASY BEING GREEN To support Vancouver’s ambitious Greenest City goals, the project is designed to achieve both Passive House and LEED Gold certification, with a focus on net zero energy and low-carbon fuel sources. BRIGHT & BOLD COLORS The buildings are clad with rusty-red-hued panels while bright yellow storage sheds enliven the outdoor play areas that are further animated with bold and colorful imaginative play opportunities such as a multi-colored tricycle court that most anyone, young and old, would love to race around on.
FACING THE PORT Both buildings are oriented toward the spectacular Northshore Mountains and Burrard Inlet with views of rail yards, marine traffic, float planes and the Port of Vancouver’s ins and outs. The architectural expression is both playful and contemporary, and is in perfect tune with the existing parkades and the surrounding built context of the highly active and historic Gastown hood.
International Grand Prix Architecture
Finland Finland ala.fi
The Wings of Freedom
Finland’s Helsinki Airport new departures and arrivals building brings a breath of adventure and romance to air travel.
: Marc Goodwin Photo
CLEAR REFERENCES Covering 43,000 m2, the departures and arrivals building is comprised of two distinct volumes. The first is defined by its wooden ceiling, the second, by its blue color.
FLY FREE BIRD, FLY! For years, architects have sought to create references to the world of flight by playing with the lightness of terminal roof designs. Here, the departure hall ceiling designed by ALA Architects plays with the concept of lightness, but combines it with extreme weight. The plasticity of the overall shape gives the impression that the ceiling is floating in the air. The flowing shapes of the spruce planks, resembling contour lines, make them an inverted version of a three-dimensional topographic map, directing passengers’ thoughts to the sky above the runway.
THE BLUE OF THE SKY Upon entering the departures hall, passengers are greeted by a blue area immediately behind the check-in kiosks. A color that soothes. A good choice for a terminal where passenger stress can sometimes be off the charts.
ARRIVE TO A SURPRISE On the lower level, passengers exiting customs are greeted by a nature diorama. This free-form installation with trees, shrubs and stones in a large planter combines the characteristics of Finnish nature with the art of Japanese gardens. Peering through the diamond-shaped opening above the diorama, passengers see both the wooden ceiling of the departures hall and the blue sky through the large skylight. Welcome to Helsinki!
International Grand Prix Architecture
Project Oakridge Redevelopment
Canada British Columbia, Canada henriquezpartners.com
Lost & Found City Greenery
A COMMUNITY-BUILDING VISION Encompassing eight city blocks, fostering an ambitious community-building vision guided by fifteen years of planning, it has become one of Canada’s largest mixed-use projects.
THE DESIGN NARRATIVE The design narrative expressed by Rui Nunes begins with the creation of a 9-acre public park, accessible to all, that drapes over new retail space in an undulating landscape. New retail street walls define the perimeter and high street, knitting together the surrounding urban fabric. Sculpted into the landscapes are retail gallerias, plazas and public amenities which emerge and define the edges of the park.
SKIN & SKELETON From this foundation, office and residential towers terrace upward, capped by iconic towers marking gateways. A design vocabulary of skin and skeleton builds on this, using the draped park as a key element and reinterpreting the towers as emerging from the landscape, adorned with their own skins. As per its bones, a.k.a. the tower slabs, they are seen along the edges where skins are pulled back revealing deep balconies and retail storefronts.
NATURE & TOPOGRAPHY When originally built, the pre-existing mall had destroyed one of the last old-growth forest parks in Vancouver. This inspired a desire to replace this lost green space within the new development. The result is a modern street-oriented urban experience, incorporating nature and topography.
Leveraging the potential of a 28-acre site in Vancouver’s city center, the Oakridge Redevelopment promises to be a groundbreaking cultural and civic hub.
International Grand Prix Architecture
Project Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library
United States
By
Netherlands mecanoo.nl
Echoing the Mothership
TOWERING FIFTH AVENUE Opened in 1911, the SASB was designed in a glorious Beaux-Art style. Natural stone, terrazzo, oak and other curated features at Stravos Niarchos Foundation Library echo those of the historical Beaux-Arts style building. The new library’s long tables recall the impressive scale of those in SASB’s Rose Main Reading Room, while ceiling artwork in the Long Room suggests SASB’s neoclassical artwork.
A FLOATING CANOPY UPON FIFTH AVENUE The library’s ground floor is thoughtfully arranged around an internal street that runs beneath a floating linear canopy of wood beams, from the Fifth Avenue entrance to the welcome desks.
THE HEART OF IT ALL Mecanoo and Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners created an opening in the floor plate reveals a made-for-children lower ground floor housing the Youth Library and Teen Center.
The heart of it all, the Long Room integrates a library concept to an old existing structure, designed originally to serve as a department store. This dramatic linear atrium separates three floors of flexible, day-lit reading areas on one side, and five levels of book stacks on the other.
TO TOP IT ALL OFF! An L-shaped terrace runs above the 40th Street and Fifth Avenue facades and hosts a roof rooftop garden and indoor café. Offering staggering Midtown views, it serves Manhattan’s only free, publicly accessible roof terrace.
: John Bartelstone Photo
New Yorkers, New Yorkers! Welcome to New York Public Library’s new-generation building featuring catered facilities for young users, adult learning, and businesses. It stands in contemporary complement to the world-famous Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.
International Grand Prix Architecture
Project The garden house in the city
Cyprus Cyprus chrispaularchstudio.wordpress.com
Cyprus City Garden
Bringing nature back to the city is not a new idea, but it is a growing imperative for cities like Nicosia in Cyprus. Erasure of the borders between the private domain and the public domain and nature at the heart of architecture.
THE PROJECT’S KEY ELEMENT Such a garden house helps to promote, conserve and expand the existing public landscape and also seeks to enhance the city’s biodiversity by raising a series of private gardens. Here, greenery surrounds the house and, by dividing its mass into two rectangular cubes, part of the vegetation is directed into the heart of the house to become a green courtyard. Additionally, green terraces on the first floor continue the garden theme.
A PROTAGONIST GARDEN The garden, in the center of it all, becomes the protagonist of the house and the rest of the areas are organized and anchored around it. The result is an enchanting whole that brings the user closer to nature. A HOME FOR THE BEES The integration of green intervals in the house includes the planting of gardens on 60% of the surface of the land, the use of green terraces on the first floor, the development of bee-friendly landscaping and more than fifty varieties of native wildflowers.
A REVOLUTION This proposal by Christos Pavlou Architecture revolutionizes the traditional typology of the urban private house by eliminating all the limits of the house and thus making it more public. A domestication of the neighborhood that provides effortless access to Le Corbusier’s three “essentials of joy”, sunlight, air and greenery.
International Grand Prix Architecture
Genève, Suisse
By
FRES ARCHITECTES
Laurent Gravier + Sara Martín Cámara
France fres.fr
A Vivid Factory-Looking Culture Hub
Geneva’s Théâtre de la Nouvelle Comédie is much more than a simple theater hall. This “factory of artistic expression” brings together, and under one roof, all the professions of live events.
A THEATER WITHIN A CITY Designed by FRES ARCHITECTES, Laurent Gravier and Sara Martín Cámara, the new building had to be hyper-functional while displaying a unique architectural profile that gives the building its own identity.
LIKE ORIGAMI Conceived in the continuity of the European theater, the large theater hall displays a frontal stage-room relationship. The envelope of the Italian-style hall is made of a folded and faceted panels which accommodate all the necessary acoustic and light devices.
A METAMORPHOSING PROFILE While classic theaters distinguish the stage cage as the central element of the building's composition, the crenelated profile characteristic of this project brilliantly and modernly expresses the multiplicity of activities present in the new theater. Discreet and neutral by day, the architecture expresses the character of a place of creation and production.
A CITY WITHIN A THEATER Generous and transparent, the hall space creates links between the interior and the exterior and expresses the theater’s openness upon the city. In the evening, the hall’s facades are lit in red staging the volume in the cityscape and inviting the spectator in for the show.
After all, in the words of Jean Villar: “When designing a theater hall, the scenography begins on the sidewalk since that is where the evening starts”.
International Grand Prix Architecture
United States California, United States otonielsolis.com
An Exquisite Endeavor to Perfection
What started off as a very simple modernized remodel of an Italian villa in California beautifully progressed into an immaculately and meticulously curated work of art.
A MOVING TARGET The ever-changing moving target of the house’s design made it challenging for L.A. Architectural Designer Otoniel Solis to stay on the tip of his toes at every more, constantly improving the whole with a true attention to detail. As the house got cleaner, the client felt enticed to increase the scope of the project. The result is a luxury home as breathtaking as the surrounding Californian sea, mountains and skyline.
SYMMETRY-LOVER With a client most fond of symmetry but existing conditions that were nothing but symmetrical, material connections were designed to arrive flush with one another. They align in such a way that creates a virtual grid and a perfectly balanced composition.
ONE BY ONE Interiors were brilliantly rearranged to maximize the hosts’ entertainment program such ranging from movie-watching on the silver screen or full-scale parties held inside or by the pool. While only a few were originally planned to be removed, one by one, villa columns were torn down. By the end, the entire house spanned from one end to the other, allowing completely unobstructed views upon the spectacular scenery and views.
THE WIND BENEATH THE WINGS The architecture talents chose to allude to the house’s imposing and extended flat roof as if it were its wings. It creates a floating effect, as if the masterpiece was taken flight, touching the ground only at the tip of its extremities. Splendid!
