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6 6 Parti Pris Various Authors

Be in the know with architecture’s current trend, from New York to Sydney, it’s all about the “big idea”.

14 Communal Living Adam Gordon

Fact: community is always the answer. These inhabitants showcase a new way of living for the modern world.

22 Narrow & Contemporary Kim Ng

Who said you can’t make something out of nothing? Especially in an urban environment where land value calls for creative measures.

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3 Artchitecture Nathan Soto

15 Teakwood Modern Elizabeth Wood

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17 Mondus Prima Ethan Hawke

Silhouettes scapes the line between art and architecture in L.L. Abram’s installation.

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Rackshire Grove James McGreer

Explore the exquisite harmony of luscious green plants inside an Art Deco atrium.

Crystalline Geometry Sam Conley

Emerge yourself in the world’s classiest restaurant, filled with exquisite titanium pillars and platinum mirrors.

11 Harper’s Bazaar Lisa Freedman

One of the largest bazaar in the world is submerged underground. Step through its complex grid to see the power of space.

Energize your bathroom with these unique wood selections, from applewood to teak.

A look at the first home of an engineer and banker, located on the Shenandoah.

19 Impossu Larry Fishern

Within the woods of Denver, C. Anderson & Associate creats an exclusive escape for a family of six.

24 Penthouse Prague George Foreman

Elegant on the outside, cozy on the inside.

See why this vacation home contains one of the best view of Prague.

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25 CADemy Jose Santos

As technology evolve, so does the presentation of architecture. Step into the future of Computer Assisted Design.

28 Twin City James Paprika

Feets apart, a hillside residence maximizes space by splitting their home in two.

30 University XYZ Earl Lintwood

Ponder the power of structure and conformity as universities dive into modernization.

41 En Masse Charles Xavier

Developing large space for the crowd, A2Z Architecture goes all out in UK.

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Pris SCI-Arc EDGE: Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture

The Power of Photography: How Images Continue to Shape the Built Environment

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By Evan Debernathy

By Claire Reed

In a culture dominated by smartphones and Instagram, with estimates that over one trillion photographs will be taken this year alone, it might seem impossible for photographs to make and shape issues in the ways they once did. Despite this, images still steer debates with shocking resiliency and, with luck, become iconic in their own right. As architecture is synonymous with placemaking and cultural memory, it is only logical that images of the built environment can have lasting effects on the issues of architecture and urbanism. It’s never been easier for photographs to gain exposure than they can today, and with social media and civilian journalism, debates have never started more quickly.

For example, an image captureing the destruction of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project, made simply as a historic document of the demolition by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Policy Development and Research, has come to define the failings of post-war urban renewal in America, and is intellectually regarded as the key-moment in the demise of Modernism. As architecture has been made accessible like never before with journalism that reaches beyond a niche audience, photography shapes perceptions of the built environment’s past and how architectural practices will change in the future.

SCI-Arc EDGE is launching a new program of study. The practice is a Master of Science in Architectural Technologies, which will be led by Marcelo Spina. It’s going to be driven by a consideration of technology’s relationship to architecture. It’s going to be both conceptual and technical. It will involve hands on experience with cutting edge technologies, but also cutting edge speculation about the meaning and aesthetics of technology in contemporary architectural production. There’s going to be a commitment to new applications, but it’s not about accepting technologies as given, but to speculate about the ways in which even known technologies can be used to produce new architectural effects.

The Bread Winner

Amanda Levete’s MPavilion Installation

By Chiva Regal

By Dean Thomas

Baker D. Chirico celebrated the launch of their new identity with the opening of their second store, in the inner city suburb of Carlton. The project was a unique collaboration between FOD (Fabio Ongarato Design), architects March Studio, artist and fashion designers PAM, and Daniel Chirico – Australia’s most recognised artisan bread maker. Focused on the juxtaposition between ageold tradition and craft, and contemporary design thinking with a surreal twist

AL_A has completed Melbourne’s second annual MPavilion. The temporary installation, initiated by Naomi Milgrom Foundation, was unveiled today in Queen Victoria Gardens. For the next four months, the public is welcome to populate the artificial “forest canopy,” whose translucent petals were developed using aerospace technology to demonstrate how an ultra-lightweight structure that can “sit lightly on the landscape and gently respond to the climate.”

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Parti

Pris Crash Landing: Skysphere

3XN Wins Approval for 200-Meter Tower in Sydney

By Saul Keith

By Sophia Mills

3XN has won an international competition to design the “50 Bridge Street” tower and masterplan for the Quay Quarter Sydney (QQS) precinct. Just west of Jørn Utzon’s Opera House, the new tower will feature five rotating glass volumes, each equipped with a multi-level atria and views of the Sydney harbour. “This project looks at the ‘high rise’ in an entirely new way, from both the inside out and outside in,” said Kim Herforth Nielsen, founding partner and creative director of 3XN. “Its dynamic, shifted massing maximizes views for all of the building’s users while also creating expansive open spaces that encourage the possibility for interaction, knowledge sharing and vertical connectivity.”

After childhood, treehouses are usually stowed away in tandem with the fantasy and adventures associated with youthful imagination. As it turns out though, there can be a wildly elaborate, adult counterpart to this early life staple. The Skysphere, a project designed by Jono Williams, is the ultimate 21st century DIY treehouse project.

Concept Revealed for Tintagel Castle Footbridge

By Laurence Dobbs The Tintagel Castle footbridge is based on a simple concept: to recreate the link that once existed and filled the current void. Instead of introducing a third element that spans from side to side, we propose two independent cantilevers that reach out and touch, almost, in the middle. Visually, the link highlights the void through the absence of material in the middle of the crossing. The structure – 4.5m high where it springs from the rock face – tapers to a thickness of 170mm in the centre, with a clear joint between the mainland and island halves.

The narrow gap between them represents the transition between the mainland and the island, here and there, the present and the past, the known and the unknown, reality and legend: all the things that make Tintagel so special and fascinating.

NYC’s First Prefab Development

New Plans for Bristol Arena

By Adam Levith

By Josh Alberst

Dubbed ‘Broadway Stack’, the 38,000 square foot building will contain 28 high quality, moderate income apartments atop 4,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan. At the moment, 5,000 square feet worth of traditional foundations and services exists on-site, awaiting the imminent arrival of fifty-six prefabricated modules from a factory in Pennsylvania. The assembly of these modules into a seven-story building will take four weeks, with an additional three months after for connecting utilities, assembling the facade and adding the finishing touches. Members of the project team will be onsite to provide viewing of the assembly during the week of April 15.

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Populous, in collaboration with Feilden Clegg Bradley Architects and BuroHappold Engineering, have submitted their design proposal for the new 12,000-person Bristol Arena to the Bristol City Council for planning approval. Following the consultation with the city and with the public, “plans have been developed further to show how event spaces in front of the arena can be used for performances, outdoor cinema, festivals, and markets.”

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Parti Werner Sobek Urges for Emissions-Free Cities by 2020

By Lisa Sturge Architect and engineer, Werner Sobek, is urging cities to become emissions-free by the year 2020 – for all cars and buildings to be entirely powered by renewable energy. Sobek shared this goal during his acceptance speech of the Fritz Leonhardt Prize in July 2015, saying that this goal is achievable, but only with the full support of automotive and construction industries. Although seven leading, industrialized nations have agreed to de-carbonization by the end of the century, Sobek believes that that would be too late.

However, Sobek’s goal of emissions-free cities does not stop at a single house. As he explains, architects and politicians must begin looking at the city as a whole system, integrating what he refers to as the “Sisterhood Principle.” Under this principle, the specific standards of each house is less important than the communication and coordination between houses, districts and cities about their energy. Though a difficult goal to be sure, Sobek believes that with the full support of the automotive and construction industries, it is possible to end reliance on fossil-fuels by 2020.

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Communal Living

Lifestyle for the Modern Age

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Craving not just a home but a proper piece of architecture, a handful of design- and businesssavvy Dutch families banded together, hired an architect, and set about forming the community that would net them the houses of their dreams.

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By Adam Gordon With the idea of communal living all too prone to conjure visions of student squalor or hippy homeliness, Villa van Vijven comes as a refreshing surprise. The strikingly sculptural bright orange building, reclining in the flat Dutch landscape, accommodates five families under a single, stylish roof. And there’s not a whiff of carob in the air.

Step into any one of its five apartments and you are convinced that you’ve entered an independent piece of architecture entirely. Though they vary in size (the largest is 3,200 square feet), each unit has a panoramic view of the surrounding landscape and its own distinctive layout, decor, and, of course, inhabitants. The group ranges from a business manager to a sports coach to an art historian. “We don’t necessarily see each other every day,” says Paula van Dijk (the art historian). “Often, we just say hello when leaving or coming home again.” Cees Noordhoek, a sales manager who lives here with his wife, Jacquelien, and three kids, adds: “It just doesn’t really feel like communal living.”

Yet Villa van Vijven is a truly collective and collaborative project, financed and commissioned by five families (19 people in total) who wanted to build a home that they could otherwise never afford: an architecturally high-impact retreat set in extensive gardens, with great views of the surrounding landscape and nearby lake. Residents Johan Bouwmeester and Marlene Blokhuis got the ball rolling when they found the large plot to the southwest of the new and rapidly growing city of Almere, an hour from Amsterdam. The appeal of the relatively rural setting, just 10 minutes from the center of the city, was manifest, and the couple began inviting design-minded acquaintances to join in on the project.

The next step was to find the right architect, one able to embrace the kind of co-creation process that the group needed to accommodate their five different dream homes under one roof. “Our first architect bullied us,” Noordhoek recalls. “But then someone told us about this promising young office, Next Architects. So we did two workshops with them and found that they were able to focus our rambling thoughts.

That was enough to convince us.”

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Yet it worked quite nicely.” At many steps along the way Schreinemachers would propose several options, which the group would discuss and then return with feedback. The final decision, though, was always the architect’s. “If I’d suggested the eventual building at the outset, they would have walked away,” he adds. “They wanted something very industrial, or thought they did. But they always wanted something architecturally interesting, a landmark building, and this design grew out of our discussions.”

Schreinemachers visualized the space as a block of rectangles that he rotated to face different directions, adding and subtracting volumes to reflect the residents’ wishes. The result is a Tetris-like layering of interlocking shapes, each with its own

“We knew that only when we acted like professional managers would it be possible to build the house on schedule and within budget.”

With the architect on board, the business of obtaining financing, permits, and other essential administration was handled, Noordhoek says, “in the same way we organized all details—by mandate. For every part of the process we appointed two managers, who did the field research, asked for competitive bids from suppliers, and had the power to act on behalf of the group. The group as a whole was presented with a detailed proposal for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote. We felt that discussions and emotions shouldn’t be allowed to run loose. We knew that only when we acted like professional managers would it be possible to build the house on schedule and within budget.”

The same tough principles were applied to the design process. “Difficulties mainly arose when individual preferences collided with another person’s interests,” Noordhoek says. “But in every case of conflicting preferences, we simply let the architect make the decision. Usually, that worked.”

“It was very different from having one client,” says architect Michel Schreinemachers of Next Architects. “With a group, you have another dynamic entirely.”

character and its own signifying color as visualized in the plans. “When Michel finished his drawings, everyone had to choose the unit they wanted—it was the moment of truth!” Noordhoek says. “And each of the five groups went for a different one, which shows how well the architect interpreted our wishes.”

Each of the five dwellings is designed to have the characteristics of individual detached housing with a view in all four directions. Each story of the villa is oriented in a different direction, rotated a quarter turn, so that they all look out to the street and the garden. the building is elevated, offering each dwelling a view over the dike and gooimeer lake.

Given that the truly communal areas of the project are just the large garden (each family also has a small private garden as well) and what Schreinemachers calls “the public square” onto which all the front doors open: a glowing orange space carved out underneath the building, where the residents tend to leave their bicycles and bump into each other on the way in or out. This feature, van Dijk says, “gives the building a really playful quality, as does its great openness to the garden.” Schreinemachers reports that he achieved it “by raising the living room up to the second floor. You can walk straight into the garden from the living rooms, over the terrace.”

Above: Despite the communal nature of their living arrangement, the residents of Villa Van Vijven, like Murdock Dochter, maintain that they still lead very independent, private lives.

Left: Next Architects took delicate care in acknowledging the private lives of residence, a key note which allowed them to geometrically divide the space into harmonious zones.

Right: Outdoor chores like gardening and landscaping fall to the residents. The entryway’s orange glow is magnificent when lit by the sun.ous zones.

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Schreinmachers chose orange for the exterior to reference the traditional orange-tiled rooftops of Dutch country buildings. Echoing the splashy chromatics of the outside, the residents quickly set about brightly painting their own interiors. In Paula van Dijk and Bob Krone’s minimal white space, for example, there’s a vivid splash of yellow, while Koos Sweringa, seeking a bit of formal instruction, attended a color course that inspired a whole palette of shades.

Color aside, the actual interior design was left to the residents themselves—to keep costs down they moved into bare spaces. Undaunted by empty expanses of naked walls and flooring, each family created an interior that satisfies their individual desires and shows a strong sense of ownership. Noordhoek (who took the green unit) sought ample floor space for his large family, and thus his unit is a generous 3,200 square feet. Bob Krone and Paula van Dijk (who took the red apartment) wanted “big, open spaces with long walls for hanging paintings and as few doors as possible.”

Koos Sweringa and Marianne Schram (whose two college-age daughters usually stay at the yellow apartment with them on weekends) wanted a “livein” kitchen that resides in the place of honor that the other families have assigned to the living room.

They also have a capsule kitchen next to their bedroom on the second floor, plus a view of the historic tower of Naarden from the same room.

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Though the architecture favors idiosyncrasy over uniformity, when it comes to each other, the residents are all quick to note that pragmatism is what they value most. They are unanimously keen to emphasize that they are best neighbors, not best friends. Thus, they maintain a fund for the upkeep of the house and are working on the idea of a shared amphitheater with a fireplace for the garden. But house meetings are kept to a minimum—far fewer than the twice-monthly gatherings demanded by the five-year development process. “The biggest advantage of living together is that we can use each other’s expertise,” Krone says.

“Another advantage is that when you’re on vacation, there’s someone to pick up the mail, water the plants, and feed the pets.”

Even while enjoying all these advantages, “I think we all still wonder what on earth it was that made us go for this unusual design,” Noordhoek says, as he strolls through the garden. “But it just stands out in every respect,” he adds, turning to look at the villa. “It surprises me every day that we dared to do it. It really is the building of our dreams.”

Above: In addition to the public garden, each unit has its own private plot, where residence can cultivate a diverse range of vegetation, thanks to the rich soil surrounging the homestead.

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6NARROWCONTEMPO RARY HOMES

Innovating the Limitation of Space

By Kim Ng Land can come at a premium in big cities. For urban dwellers, sometimes the only option is to build narrow. Real narrow.

In Japanese, these cramped abodes are called “narrow homes” (狭小住宅 or “kyoushou jyuutaku”).

Typically, they’re built on plots of land that are less than 50 square meters. The notion is not new*; however, “narrow homes” as we now know them started appearing in the 1950s and the 1960s.

Architects like Takamitsu Azuma helped define the narrow home in the decades after World War II. Realize that not everyone in Japan (myself included!) lives in a cramped house or a tiny apartment. Moreover, not all apartments look chic. Even in the cities, there are large homes and big apartments. In the suburbs and the countryside, dwellings can get even larger.

But there’s something so appealing about how beautiful and artfully these narrow homes use small spaces—that is, unless you are claustrophobic. Recently, Japanese site Naver did a round up of some of the standout tiny homes. Below, you can find some of the houses featured, along with some other unique narrow homes I’ve added. Let’s have a look. *Before and during the war, there were narrow “row houses” that were residences packed sideby-side, often sharing the same walls. These are different from “narrow homes” and can still be seen in Japan today.

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HOUSE NAME ARCHITECT

Contrast House DUBBELDAM Architecture + Design Contrast House explores the role of contrast in the modern renewal of a 120-year old home. Employing the use of contrast in a historic neighborhood and as a means to amplify natural light, the design juxtaposes elements to explore the relationship between light and dark, old and new. The owners, relocating to Canada from southern climes, hoped to brighten the dark, narrow house.

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Although the existing house possessed a south-facing facade, it was only 11 feet wide and due to a traditional Victorian layout, had no direct sight lines to allow outward views and access to light. As a result, the primary design challenge was to increase natural light in the space, accomplished through both physical and perceptual means.

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Zero Cottage David Baker Architects Zero Cottage is an investigation of compact, sustainable urban development and a contemporary approach to living and working. The cottage is composed of a 712-square-foot living space set over a 430-square-foot workshop. It pairs with an existing building to complete a flexible, mixed-use compound that also includes a two-bedroom flat, studio apartment and storefront space.

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The free-standing addition presented an opportunity to explore advanced sustainable design, construction techniques, materials and technologies, with a goal of achieving Passive House and Net-Zero Energy certification. It is the first Passive House-certified home in San Francisco and officially achieved Net Zero Energy Building Certification in June 2014.

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Anh House Sanuki + Nishizawa Architects This house, designed for a thirty-years-old-women and her family, is built on the plot of 4m wide and 21m deep in Ho Chi Minh City, which is very typical for urban tube houses in Vietnam. The main request from the client is to realize the bright and open space filled with natural light and greenery.

Tube house, the most typical housing style in Vietnam, itself has a critical difficulty in getting enough natural light and ventilation.

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Because there’s no opening on the two long boundary sidewalls and secondly because Vietnamese people tend to have lots of fixed partition walls for separating many bedrooms. Therefore, the main theme of this house is to explore the possibility of a new lifestyle in Vietnam, in which that such dark and humid space need to be improved drastically into a bright and open one.

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Galley House Donald Chong Studio When most families decide to put down roots, they look for big, accommodating houses with broad stretches of yard. Stroll down Galley Avenue in Toronto’s leafy Roncesvalles neighborhood and you’ll see plenty of homes that fit the bill—tall walls of red brick a century old. Something that yells nostalgia upon first sight, befittingly worthy of a place to call home.

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Then there’s the exception: a narrow modernist composition of glass panes and purple brick that slips like a bookmark between two older buildings. This is where Karen White and David MacNaughtan made a new home for themselves and their two boys—a bright three-story abode on a lot narrower than most suburban driveways.

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House in Nada Fujiwarramuro Architects On a slight 37 square meter site in the hyogo prefecture, a timber-faced home by fujiwaramuro architects combats spatial narrowness with dimensional gaps and holes within its interior field. the vertically oriented wood skin connects a multi-level single family home with a strikingly grained exterior. by contrast, a large central atrium organizes the space in sectionally, while wooden grates dematerialize the lateral planes.

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These two architectural gestures create a sunlit space that reaches the bottom of the house. the center void also serves as storage space and works in conjunction with the asymmetric smattering of apertures that puncture the envelope. room spaces are layered with a network of ladders that culminate in a rooftop loft.

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Promenade House Koichi Kimura Architects The project is for the house owned by a young couple and is planned at the unique site 4 meters wide and 35 meters deep. The geometrical restriction of the site is reflected in the internal composition of the house. The building, with a width of 2.7 meters and a total length of 27 meters, is laid out in accordance with the narrow site to draw its outline. The internal space has been planned to have a long narrow hallway, with which your body senses the site geometry.

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As you proceed along the hallway you will see the spaces spread out one after another. The long hallway is extended from the entrance on the first floor, led by the footlight through the dining and living rooms, and connected to the raised study at the very end. It reaches to the idyllic view seen through the large opening of the study where the tapered line of sight from the entrance is opened up.

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dwell at home in the modern world

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Rethink Lumens

Why Your Light Source Matters

Stone Cold:

Nordic Homes Carved from Ice within Bjorvand Peaks

at home in the modern world

Prefab Zen

The Power of Gentrification in the City of Steel

Timeless | Everlasting | Refined

The Ins and Outs of Owning a Prefab

Industrial Modernization for the 21st Century

Finding Your Dream Home’s Perfect Spot

Future Proof Your Home with These 10 Pro-Tips

November 2015

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New Pittsburgh

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October 2015

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Revisiting a Revolution

Titan-Forged

Structure | Nature | Harmony

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dwell at home in the modern world

On the Road

Mobile Homes on the GO

Smallsville, USA

Micro-Living Communities Across the Country

MODERN COMMUNITY Efficient | Integral | Trending

Alternative Lifestyles for the Adventerous

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MODERN COMMUNITY Volume 12

8 December 2015 45 Dwell December 2015 44