MAY
This project won the Interior Design category for this year’s IDA awards. At first glance it looks like a hotel, but is actually a 39 story residential complex in the Roppongi district of Tokyo.
The concept for the public areas was created by Nikken Space Design. It is a play on the juxtaposition of the calm comfort of the building’s interiors, and the lively Roppongi street outside. Read more
MAR
A Hong Kong Chinese human rights organisation, the “Society for Community Organisation” (SoCO), has commissioned a series of photographs of overcrowded living spaces in the city. The results show the shocking living conditions that some individuals are forced to endure in order to survive. Read more
JAN
Continuing today’s theme of houses built around the appreciation of a particular tree, the Offset house in São Paulo, Brazil designed by Shieh Arquitetos Associados shows its appreciation of the magnificent tree already found on the site by articulating two halves of the building to create the impression that it wraps around the tree. From inside openings are placed at different levels, giving the viewer a perception of the tree’s full scale. Read more
JAN
In the 20 x 20 House, designed by Felipe Assadi and Francisca Pulido, that Miesian maxim: “God is in the detail”, seems to resonate.
There is arguably a religious zealotry when the dimension of a ceramic tile is allowed to dictate the dimensional grid of every aspect of an entire building, producing a sort of cosmological map of the architect’s entire universe. The approach, once popular amongst minimalists, fell out of favour sometime after the point when every talentless architect on the planet used it as a justification to produce the most tedious and nauseating buildings imaginable.
Thankfully, Assadi and Pulido who worked with Trinidad Schonthaler have managed to produce an exciting architectural expression that is both crafted and creative. The architecture is developed on a 20 x 20 inches three dimensional grid that is applied to and is part of every aspect of the building. Inside and outside!
In receiving a very strict brief from the client, the architect found comparative freedom to design by imposing the even more rigid tile grid…
