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Modest Modernism: Concrete Block House in Brazil Wins Award

08 May

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

mains home

An understated but award-winning Modernist dwelling design in São Paulo, Brazil, has turned a narrow lot into a lovely and low-cost habitat suited to the needs of its poor and elderly inhabitant. Terra e Tuma Arquitetos (images by Pedro Kok) used low-budget materials and simple design techniques to avoid depleting the owner’s funds.

maids home entry

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maids home living rooms

Structural concrete block was used to create both retaining and interior walls of the Vila Matilde, forming a kitchen, bedroom, living room and courtyard garden space on the main floor. The gaps between blocks are left exposed, adding a layer of smaller detail on the otherwise-monolithic surfaces.

maids home upper story

A guest room was intentionally situated above, given the age of the occupant and her increased difficulty in getting up stairs. Metal and glass windows, doors and balcony railings are kept slim and functional on both levels.

maids home living room

maids home first floor courtyard

In many ways, this home is quite aligned with regional vernacular, situated on the thin site and those elongated and with reduced hallway space (since corridors can dovetail with other uses), as well a deck above.

maids home second story

The project had to contend with demolishing the old and structurally-unsound home previously on the 15-foot-wide lot. During the reconstruction, the owner went to live with a relative.

maids home night

Indeed, part of her reasoning behind staying in the house was the abundance of family in the area. Rebuilding let her stay close to loved ones in a home of her own. All in all, this project is a great example of how architecture can help those of limited means live in something individualized and well-designed to their needs.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Stronger than Concrete: New Glass Bricks Support Dutch Facade

22 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

glass brick facade

A new type of see-through glass brick used in this Dutch building facade aims to bridge traditional brick with transparency; the assembled bricks have been tested and shown to be as strong as concrete, able to support heavy loads in compression like its opaque competitor.

glass brick assembly

Architecture firm MVRDV applied this new technology to the front of a Chanel shop in Amsterdam that was damaged behind repair, allowing for a see-through storefront that still references local historic brick while using fully-recyclable glass.

glass brick detail

The bricks themselves are held in place with likewise see-through glue and help support the remaining terracotta brickwork on the floor above into which they visually transition. The structurally-sound result stands out against the street, but also lets additional light into the interior of the building.

glass brick details

glass brick in context

This new approach to brick can help mediate between the desire for solidity and openness, providing a cheap alternative to both masonry and glass construction traditions. The construction process was as much a laboratory experiment as an architectural process, involving teams from around the world in different disciplines.

glass brick view

Researchers from Delft University of Technology, engineers at ABT and contractors at Wessels Zeist joined forces to develop and test structural solutions and fabrication techniques, ultimately leading to the development of this new type of brick. The bricks were then cast by a glass company Venice and joined using glue from Delo Industrial Adhesives in Germany. (Photos by Daria Scagliola and Stijn Brakkee).

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

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Sea Organ: Concrete Jetty Makes Music with Crashing Waves

21 Nov

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

sea organ 1

The ocean already makes music of its own, but in one Croatian town, its natural sounds are enhanced with the help of an interactive jetty-turned-instrument called ‘Sea Organ.’ Created by architect Nikola Basic in collaboration with engineers, craftspeople and a musical professor who tuned all of the pipes, the 230-foot installation on the coast of Zadar emits a constantly-changing concert of harmonic sounds with the flow of wind and water.

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A system of polyethylene tubes and a resonating cavity are disguised beneath a set of marble steps leading straight into the Adriatic Sea. The channels connect to 35 organ pipes, and each set of steps containing five pipes is tuned to a different musical chord. As waves and the wind push air into the pipes, they create a haunting chorus of sound. The rougher the sea, the louder and faster the music.

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sea organ 2

The Zadar-Morske Orgulje, as it’s known locally, is also topped with an interactive display of LED lights that seem timed to show the movement of the water under the marble. This 22-meter-diameter, disc-shaped solar-powered installation called ‘Sun Salutation,’ also created by Basic, only serves to make the music of the sea even more magical.

Images via Flickr Creative Commons: linssimato, J We, Suzanne Hamilton, EyeofJ

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Cruelty of Concrete: Harsh Architecture in Berlin & Beyond

17 Nov

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

berlin brutalism fem 1

There is an innate coldness and harshness to concrete that lends it a sinister air, as if unsavory practices are carried out within, even if the building is actually in use as a church or monastery. Spanning a range of architectural styles and movements from Bauhaus to Constructivism, most of these concrete wonders of Europe are in use as animal research facilities, former bunkers, libraries and hotels, while others remain abandoned.

Mouse Bunker, Berlin: FEM Animal Testing Facility

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berlin brutalism fem 3

The imposing exterior of the FEM facility at Berlin’s Research Institute for Experimental Medicine is fittingly frightening for the activities that take place within: namely, testing on 88,000 laboratory animals. Known locally as the ‘Mouse Bunker,’ FEM was built in 1980 and its shape was ironically inspired by the sheep-stalls of Lower Saxony.

Sainte Bernadette Church, Nevers

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Designed by French architect Claude Parent and built in 1966, the Sainte Bernadette Church in the city of Nevers is about as un-churchlike as churches get. The solid concrete Brutalist structure eschews ornamentation for a utilitarian appearance that continues into the interior.

Bibliotheque Louis Nucera, Nice, France

crucl concrete bibliotheque

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This modern library in Nice is among the world’s most unusual, with a square block sitting atop a giant sculpted neck. Named for author Louis Nucera, the building is a joint project between architects Bayard and Chaps and sculptor Sacha Sosno.

IBM France Research Center

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Marcel Breuer’s 1962 IBM Research Centre and Forum features a double Y-shaped plan situated on a sloping site overlooking the French Riviera. Precast concrete units on the facade disguise a system of in-situ concrete columns

Ghostly World War II Boat Pen, Bordeaux, France

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Sections of the abandoned Base Sous-Marine in Bordeaux are occasionally put to use as a dramatic backdrop for special events, but otherwise, this World War II wonder completed by the Germans in 1944 remains hauntingly empty. It once served as a home base for supply boats, torpedo transports, U-boats and the 12th Flotilla of long-range boats in the war and features a nearly indestructible 30-foot-thick roof. The whole thing occupies a total area of nearly 463,000 square feet and was made from 21,188,800 cubic feet of concrete.

Forum Hotel, Krakow

cruel concrete forum hotel

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cruel concrete forum hotel 3

Constructed between 1978 and 1989, Krakow’s Hotel Forum remains one of Poland’s most sci-fi-looking structures, but today, it’s deteriorating, its facades often covered in oversized billboards.

St. Agnes Church, Berlin

cruel concrete st. agnes church

Once adorned with a neon blue cross that gently illuminated its harsh silhouette in the geographical center of Berlin, St. Agnes Church (built in 1967) was recently turned into an art gallery.

Jesuit Cloister by Paul Schneider-Elsleben, Nymphenburg
cruel concrete jesuit cloister

Life must have felt harsh for the Jesuit monks who inhabited this Nymphenburg monastery by Paul Schneider-Esleben, completed in 1965.

Water Towers in Germany by Bernd & Hilla Becher

cruel concrete water tower 2

Water towers take on all sorts of weird shapes around the world, but Germany has its own special collection of Brutalist concrete versions by Bernd & Hilla Becher and Helmut Erdle.

Tour Vigie et Reservoir, Gaston, France

Undeniably weird, this watchtower and reservoir designed by Gaston Jaubert and built in 1974 looks over the port of Fos-sur-Mer in France.

Radio Kootwijk, Netherlands

cruel concrete radio netherlands 2

Pre-dating most Brutalist and modernist architecture by several decades, the Radio Kootwijk building began construction in 1918. Designed by Dutch architect Julius Maria Luthmann in Art Deco style, it’s an interesting juncture of a typically ornate architectural style and a rather impersonal material. The Germans blew up the transmitter during World War II and the building has been in disuse ever since.

Pilgrimage Church by Gottfried Bohm, Neviges, Germany

cruel concrete pilgrimage church 2

Designed by Pritzker Prize-winnign architect Gottfried Böhm and built in 1963, the Pilgrimage Church in Neviges, Germany resembles nothing more than an organic composition made from an unnatural medium, like a cluster of oversized crystals rising from the green hillside.

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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Playable Landscapes: Custom Concrete 3D Puzzles of Cityscapes

13 Nov

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

3d city maps

Pick any spot in the world and this company can print out a custom mould for a concrete pour, which, when cured, will make a 16- or 32-piece puzzle out of your favorite place.

3d cityscape

Using Open Street Map data, Logiplaces has already created a preliminary set of popular places voted up by fans for mass production, including downtown San Francisco and the Grand Canyon.

Liked a traditional puzzle, the sides of each piece can be matched up to create the whole, but unlike most puzzles, it is the vertical rather than the horizontal shapes that allow for matching. It becomes a matter of figure and ground, connecting building scales and typographies rather than colors and 2D patterns.

3d puzzles

At this point, fully-custom selections are cost-prohibitive for consumers, but the goal of the company is to make these accessible to mass markets as well. “When we came up with the idea of LOGIPLACES, we believed it had the potential to go global with loads of different places to cover. However, right now, we would first like to see, what are your favourite places that we can start manufacturing, and of course, we’re interested in what our first consumers think.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

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Beach Read: Monumental Concrete Library on the Edge of a Bay

31 Oct

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

beach library 1

If you’ve ever gotten bored with the book you’re reading on the beach and wished you could just run into a seaside library for a new one, here’s the building of your dreams: a stunning modern repository of books so close to the sea, it’s practically on the water. Vector Architects positioned this monumental concrete structure right on the edge of China’s Bohai Bay, about three hours from Beijing, with massive glass doors opening the reading space right onto the sand.

beach library 2

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Oriented to direct nearly all of its views to the water, the library feels strong and solid, anchored to the sand. Of course, it’s hard not to worry about all of those books being ruined in the event of a severe storm. It’s not clear whether the architects have taken any particular precautions against potential disasters, but it certainly looks like a beautiful place to sit and read, especially when the lower doors are all open to the breezes coming off the water.

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Steel roof trusses support the massive canopy roof, which curves down into the wall at the rear of the building. Upper-level benches and tables look out a strip of fixed windows, and a stairway leads to a small rooftop patio. In contrast, a meditation room is insulated from the rest of the space, the only windows a handful of skylights carefully directing natural light.

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beach library 13

The building feels like a real-life version of a series of storm-proof fantasy beach structures by Dionisio Gonzalez – architecture with the heft and wherewithal to stand up to the elements when other buildings would be swept away.

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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Concrete Wonders: 13 Brutalist Buildings in the USA & Britain

26 Oct

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

brutalism US brunel 2

While the most theatrical Brutalist buildings remain in the former USSR, there are plenty more of these controversial concrete complexes around the world, and they draw both admiration and ire in Britain and the United States. While Prince Charles of Wales likes to call them ‘monstrous carbuncles,’ and sloppy Brutalist blunders certainly exist, many modernist concrete structures built between the 1950s and ‘80s are striking in their minimalism and solidity.

Geisel Library, San Diego, California

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brutalist US geisel 2

The Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego (named for the author best known as Dr. Seuss) was made of reinforced concrete to save money, which enabled a more sculptural design. The 8-story structure by William Pereira has two subterranean levels and was “deliberately designed to be subordinated to the strong, geometrical form of the existing library” on the campus.

Tricorn Center, Portsmouth, England

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This weird building called the Tricorn Center was a retail, nightclub and parking garage complex completed in the mid-1960s and so named because it resembles a tricorn hat from above. It was voted the third ugliest building in the UK in the ‘80s, and demolished in 2004. Charles, Prince of Wales famously called it “a mildewed lump of elephant droppings.”

Barbican Estate, London, England

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This residential complex built in the ‘60s and ’70s stands right in the financial district of London, one of the few examples of British brutalist architecture that’s still mostly intact. There are three tower blocks and 13 terrace blocks positioned around a lake and green squares; the towers are each 404 feet tall.

Brunel University, London, England

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Built in the ‘60s and designed by Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners, the Brunel University Lecture Center was one of two ‘high Brutalist’ structures prominently featured in Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange.

Brownfield Estate, East London

Balfron Tower at the Brownfield Estate, an area of social housing in East London, is often considered the sister building of Trellick Tower. Designed by Erno Goldfinger in 1963, it contains 146 residences and features a separate elevator shaft with skybridge connections on every third floor.

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Concrete Wonders 13 Brutalist Buildings In The Usa Britain

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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Reversible Concrete: 3D Printing for Easy Deconstruction & Reuse

10 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

temporary concrete

Reinventing one of the world’s most ubiquitous building materials, this concrete alternative developed at MIT can be 3D-printed then disassembled without wasting unnecessary energy or creating useless debris. Imagine the possibilities temporary concrete architecture that is easy to deconstruct with zero material loss.

temporary rock string concrete

Rock Print effectively shoves rocks into position, binding them with computer-controlled string. The result in this demonstration at the Chicago Architecture Biennial is a rigid 13-foot column that can be cleanly unraveled into its constituent parts.

temporary architecture concrete alternative

A product of the Self-Assembly Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this approach suggests a new way to think about concrete, a material that is typically cheap and easy to use in construction but expensive and wasteful when it comes to demolition.

temporary concrete jammed rocks

As Skylar Tibbits explains, “We are using a similar technique to powder-based printing. There is a container, material is deposited layer by layer and a ‘binder (in this case the string) is applied to each layer in the specific pattern of the slice.”

temporary concrete column detail

Effectively any shape is possible thanks to the 3D printing process, while the results are strong and durable, relying on the physics of jamming and collective strength of composited stones. Even more importantly, the reversibility of the process makes this a far more eco-friendly way to build rigid structures from durable materials that still dismantle on demand.

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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Cliff Diving: Dramatic Concrete Home & Pool Cut into Precipice

07 Jul

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

casa brutale main

File this dramatic cliff-hanging, swimming-pool-topped home called Casa Brutale under ‘fit for a villain in every possible way.’ Practically begging to be used as a base for unsavory characters in a film, this concrete residence set into the craggy hills overlooking the Aegean Sea is surprisingly modest and spare, free of flashy luxuries.

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casa brutale 2

It doesn’t need to show off, really, when its very existence in this location packs such a powerful visual impact. You enter the home from a stairway on the ground level, descending into an interior that’s shielded from the sky only by the glass-bottomed swimming pool.

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Anyone who swims in the pool is instantly turned into entertainment for the people watching from below, and the watery reflections cast over every surface are the main defining characteristic of the simple, open interior spaces. The entire cliff-facing facade is also made of glass further opens the home to the shimmer of water, this time from the sea.

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OPA (Open Platform for Architecture) clearly heard the cries of ‘James Bond villain lair’ when their initial drawings were released, so they’ve worked a nod or two into the new renderings, including a requisite Ferrari.

casa brutale 5

“Case Brutale is a geometrical translation of the landscape,” say the architects. “It is an unclad statement on the simplicity and harmony of contemporary architecture. It is a chameleonic living space, created to serve its owner and respect the environment… in literal groundbreaking integration, Casa Brutal penetrates the landscape.”

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Fresh Biocement: World’s First Self-Healing Concrete Building

20 May

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

bioconcrete

One of the biggest challenges to building with concrete is the material’s propensity to crack both while it dries and in the years that follow, making this self-fixing solution an incredibly powerful application of bacterial biotechnology.

biocement cracks healing

Developed by Dutch scientists Eric Schlangen and Henk Jonkers, this new biocement has been in development for years but is now first the first time a critical part of a real work of architecture and the results are extremely promising. As reported by CNN, one can already witness the self-healing process in action on the side of this lifeguard station, a test structure subject to highly varied sunlight and weather conditions.

biocement self healing buildings

Concrete is generally created with portland cement, aggregate and admixtures – this just adds one more key ingredient to the list: a mixture of bacteria and capsules of calcium lactate. Activated by water when cracks form, the former ingests the latter to produce calcite that in turn fills in gaps. Unlike algae-fueled bio-architecture that needs to remain alive and active, these bacteria can lay dormant for years without water or oxygen, lying in wait until called upon for an unpredictable future repair job.

biocement architecture structure

Architects have long had to work around this critical limitation in concrete, creating separations between spans and avoiding sharp corners that crack and break. This technology could open up new possibilities for infrastructure as well as building designs, impacting everything from parking structures and sidewalks to skyscraper foundations and walls. Similar solutions are also in development, including a variant in development by MIT that uses sunlight as the activation mechanism rather than moisture, but this is the first full-scale application of such a self-healing material. Between these developments, concrete-printing and concrete-deconstructing robots, the future looks bright for this traditionally gray material.

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Posts Tagged ‘Concrete’

Modest Modernism: Concrete Block House in Brazil Wins Award

Stronger than Concrete: New Glass Bricks Support Dutch Facade

Sea Organ: Concrete Jetty Makes Music with Crashing Waves

Cruelty of Concrete: Harsh Architecture in Berlin & Beyond

Mouse Bunker, Berlin: FEM Animal Testing Facility

Sainte Bernadette Church, Nevers

Bibliotheque Louis Nucera, Nice, France

IBM France Research Center

Ghostly World War II Boat Pen, Bordeaux, France

Forum Hotel, Krakow

St. Agnes Church, Berlin

Water Towers in Germany by Bernd & Hilla Becher

Tour Vigie et Reservoir, Gaston, France

Radio Kootwijk, Netherlands

Pilgrimage Church by Gottfried Bohm, Neviges, Germany

Playable Landscapes: Custom Concrete 3D Puzzles of Cityscapes

Beach Read: Monumental Concrete Library on the Edge of a Bay

Concrete Wonders: 13 Brutalist Buildings in the USA & Britain

Geisel Library, San Diego, California

Tricorn Center, Portsmouth, England

Barbican Estate, London, England

Brunel University, London, England

Brownfield Estate, East London

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Concrete Wonders 13 Brutalist Buildings In The Usa Britain

Reversible Concrete: 3D Printing for Easy Deconstruction & Reuse

Cliff Diving: Dramatic Concrete Home & Pool Cut into Precipice

Fresh Biocement: World’s First Self-Healing Concrete Building

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Posts Tagged ‘Concrete’

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Ghostly World War II Boat Pen, Bordeaux, France

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St. Agnes Church, Berlin

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Geisel Library, San Diego, California

Tricorn Center, Portsmouth, England

Barbican Estate, London, England

Brunel University, London, England

Brownfield Estate, East London

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