YOSSAWAT » Interior Architecture

Fairfield House by Webber + Studio, Inc

Yossawat — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:03:12 +0000

David Webber, AIA, of the Austin-based firm Webber + Studio, jokes that the house in Austin’s Hyde Park neighborhood that he designed for himself and Ransom Baldasare, his business and life partner, is really just like everyone else’s. “It has everything anyone asks for when they’re looking for a new house: five bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths, a kitchen open to living and dining areas, a place for guests—programmatically it’s pretty unremarkable.” What Webber says may be true, but the reason he can say it with a smile is because he knows that apart from the program, the house is anything but commonplace.

Hyde Park is one of Austin’s older, centrally located neighborhoods, and its proximity to the University of Texas makes it popular with UT staff. Since part of Webber’s intention with the house was to have a permanent suite for his 68-year-old father when he was in town, it seemed like the right area.

Webber bought a 1947 craftsman-style home with an average-sized lot (120 by 60 feet), and set about creating the house. “We never start a project knowing exactly what shape it’s going to take,” he says. “We knew a few things that we wanted, but mostly, as with everything I do, when you understand the history and geography, the things just design themselves.

For both Webber, who was born and raised in Austin, and Baldasare, who is from California, having a home that was linked to its context and climate was key. To create a 3,200-square-foot home that would not take over the entire lot, Webber designed the home as a series of interlocking volumes and voids that embrace the outdoors, indirectly defining outdoor spaces such as a small terrace, larger backyard, rear patio, and a dog-trot-inspired breezway.

“I was inspired by those dog-trot houses in the south,” says Webber. “In Austin you need to capture breezes where you can.” Clad in a rainscreen made of cypress on the front of the house, the interior courtyard, under the windows on the east and west sides, and double-locked, standing-seam metal roofing on remainder of the west side, the house is nothing if not fortified against the elements.

Walking through and around the house brings a new experience in every space. Webber started with a box facing the street, with a cathedral-like entry 25 feet high. That area quickly drops down to under 8 feet into a sitting area, then back up slightly for the kitchen and dining area. The box then ends in glass, as Webber carved out the center to create a patio.

Back inside, you climb the stairs to the second floor, take a moment to rest in a loft-like sitting area before seeing where Webber’s vision of pulling out one side of the box comes to life in a bridge with a translucent hallway with an eastern-facing polycarbonate wall connecting a study, two kids’ bedrooms (the couple plans to expand their family), and his dad’s guest suite, with bedroom upstairs and steps down to a kitchenette, dining, and sitting area. “It’s my favorite place in the house,” says Baldasare about Webber’s dad’s realm, “because both the upstairs and downstairs living spaces are directly connected to the outside.” Directly connected to the outside, yet still part of the main house.

The surprises continue on the home’s west side, where you notice that the three main upstairs bedrooms actually project out in bays, blocking harsh western sun and bringing in northern and southern exposure from strategically placed windows. Also on that side, a 12-foot cantilevered projectile, clad in metal roofing, creates covered parking.

With local materials such as cypress cladding on the outside, pecan cladding and floors on the inside and Texas limestone in the bathrooms, another connection to the area is realized. And although the house doesn’t look a thing like any of the smaller craftsman homes surrounding it, it makes you wonder why those other homes weren’t designed like this one. “I’m totally against the idea that a house should be one big mass in the center of the lot,” says Webber. “Defining spaces, whether inside or outside, small or big, can make every room feel surprisingly different and unique.”

Source : Architectural Record, Webber + Studio, Inc

Saxo Bank by 3XN Architects

Yossawat — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:14:14 +0000

Saxo Bank is a young dynamic internet bank with focus on online-trade with currencies, shares and futures on the bank’s self-developed platform, Saxo Trader. Saxo Bank was founded in 1992 in Denmark and counts around 850 staff members of 35 nationalities who serve customers from 115 different countries.

Saxo Bank’s new headquarter in Copenhagen is designed by 3XN. Although the customers primarily encounter the bank in cyberspace, the physical premises of the head office is of great importance to the management of the bank who participate actively and are highly dedicated to the development of the building. The building is of great iconographic significance, and there is a strong conviction that architecture and design affect each staff member’s performance and awareness of the company.

The architectural design is based on Saxo’s cutting-edge profile and branding. The lines of the building design define a sharp balance between reliability and dynamic expressivity in dialogue with the local plan. The building is shaped like two blocks with the end walls pointing towards the canal, joined together by facades that are withdrawn from the end walls. The facades are shaped like double curved glass that wave like a piece of textile.

The interior of the building is open and transparent with a large sense of community. The open plans centre round a softly shaped atrium with a glass roof. In the atrium, the main stair case winds up to the top. However, the main room and largest attraction of the building is the so-called Trading Floor where share prices are monitored intensely and resemble scenes from American movies about stock exchanges. Furthermore, the building encompasses a large number of rooms for technical support, kitchenettes and recreational areas.

spiral staircase the main feature of the building, image courtesy 3XN architects

lobby, image courtesy 3XN architects

spiral staircase, image courtesy 3XN architects

conference room, image courtesy 3XN architects

Source : Designboom.com

Pine Hill Road Residence by Dowling Kimm Studio

Yossawat — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:02:57 +0000

This project involved the interior architecture, millwork design, and furniture for a 6000 square foot single family residence located on a site with incredible view of San Francisco Bay, and the East Bay beyond.

The design reflects the Dowling Kimm Studios clients’ interest in contemporary design and exotic materials. End grain mesquite block wood floors, finished with a walnut stain, run throughout. The wood texture contrasts with a path of large format concrete tiles.

The kitchen is composed of horizontal grain zebra wood with walnut accents, and honed granite countertops. The large sliding doors, which separate the kitchen and the study from living room, are finished in customer heat burnished stainless steel panels. The furnishings are modern, but comfortable, with muted natural tones and subtle textures.

Source : Dowling Kimm Studio

Artfarm by HHF Architects & Ai Weiwei

Yossawat — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:21:07 +0000

The Artfarm is located near Salt Point in upstate New York (1.5h drive from the City), on the site of an existing private residence, built in the 80ies. The client is an art collector and owner of Chambers Fine Art, a well known gallery located in New York City and Beijing and which is specialized in contemporary chinese art.

The building is designed as a gallery for a professional art collection. On the interior it’s subdivided into different sized showrooms, an office space and spaces designated to store art.

The outer shape is a consequence of the used pre-engineered and easy to assemble type of steel building, which often gets used for agricultural purposes in that area. With ist abstract metallic appearance the structure becomes an equal member of a whole groupe of sculptures which are spread out in the landscape. The three volumes are put on a solid concrete slabs, which follow the existing grade on the site. The different levels are connected through a continues cascading ramp in the middle axis. This middle hallway with its ramp works as access for all spaces, allows an easy way of exchanging big pieces of art between storage and showrooms and works at the same time as a picture gallery.

Approaching the Artfarm building from outside you don’t know what’s expecting you on the inside. Even though there are only three windows existing to the north (and the end of each hall, above the middle ramp, this is the only visual connection to the outside and allows a view into the wood), the building with its pure white interiors is astonishing bright on the inside. The massive concrete floor and the white shiny PVC batt insulation are creating a quiet and cool space. For delicate goods such as paintings etc. consistent indoor temperatures are needed, which is a challenge in an area with such enourmous change in temperatures.

With the concept of an hermetic closed and insulated envelope, the existing heating and cooling needs only to conserve the climate and support it when needed. This seems to work well, during the first summer the cooling had never to be turned on, even on really hot days it was comfortable and cool on the inside.

Source : Arch Daily

N85 Residence by Morphogenesis

Yossawat — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:02:05 +0000

Looking at the work of New Delhi and Pune, India-based architecture firm Morphogenesis, it’s clear that its principals appreciate Modern architecture. But for Manit and Sonali Rastogi, partners in life and in the firm, Modern doesn’t mean Minimal. “After living life as Minimalists in an all-white loft in Delhi where even our toothbrush holders were white, we went to the other end of the spectrum,” says Sonali. “We’re ‘Maximalists’ now. We wanted to create a space that conformed to our needs as a multi-generational family, instead of conforming our family to our living space. Our house continues to evolve, with input from visitors—many of them artists and designers, and it contributes to our participatory way of living.”

The house as a platform has been used to investigate two issues central to design today: the family as a social unit and the environment. It sets about to create its own terrain, a veritable oasis, within its inscribed territory. The forecourt is landscaped with gracious steps and pools. Crisp clear planes are articulated with materials: stone, wood, concrete which are simply striated or set in interlocking patterns. Transparency is achieved by not only by glass, but a combination of water, reflection, and modulated lighting. At night, the house appears magical, glowing like a lantern and allowing glimpses of activity within. This residence multitasks as a house for three generations of a family and their many visitors, a busy workspace, and on occasion a cultural hub. The house can be identified by overlapping spatial categories split into three levels: the private domain of the nuclear family (bedrooms and breakfast room), the shared inter-generational spaces such as the family room, kitchen and dining areas, and the fluid public domain of the lobby and living spaces. The public domain is activated each time the house opens its doors for “Manthan,” a cultural event that promotes an energetic exchange of ideas between various creative disciplines.

One navigates the complex program of the house through a series of spatial episodes that are expressed via volumes. These episodes are distributed across the house, revealed at chosen moments: when descending steps cascade to subterranean offices or rooms and furniture framed by large picture windows. Moving through the house, it is immediately clear that the central space is the fulcrum of the project. The ceiling is dotted by circular skylights with an interior garden below, a green sanctuary within the house. A lap pool fed by harvested rain water runs the length of the terrace on the second floor.

Environmental design plays an integral role in achieving a network of green and open spaces. The house is imagined as a porous object whereby air movement and visual connectivity permeate into the built form. The planning, orientation, structure and materiality of the house respond to the essential passive energy efficient techniques suitable to the Delhi climate. It incorporates high thermal mass in the west, earth damping for the basement studios, landscape buffers on the south, and high performance surfaces on the east and a large cavity on the barrel roof as well as the lap pool which helps with heat absorption on the top terraces. The courtyard concept has been radically re-interpreted and along with landscape, earth, daylight simulators and carbon-dioxide sensors. There is an entire eco-system living and growing in the heart of the house.

Source : Architectural Record, Morphogenesis

NYU Department of Philosophy by Steven Holl Architects

Yossawat — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:33:36 +0000

The Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences and a committee of Philosophy Professors collaborated in the selection of Steven Holl Architects to design the complete interior renovation of a 1890 corner building at 5 Washington Place for the consolidation of the NYU Department or Philosophy within a concept which organizes the new spaces around light and phenomenal properties of materials. A new stair shaft below a new skylight joins the 6-level building vertically with a shifting porosity of light and shadow that change seasonally. The Ground level, utilized by the entire University, contains a new curvilinear wooden auditorium on a cork floor. The upper level floors contain Faculty Offices and Seminar Rooms which are done in different shades and textures of black & white, according to the texts in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s book “Remarks on Colour”.

Source : dezeen, myninjaplease, Steven Holl Architects

Grouf House by Lundberg Design

Yossawat — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 06:07:24 +0000

To understand the Grouf House you need to understand the budget; for almost every design decision made was driven by budgetary considerations. Northern California is one of the most expensive places to build in the world. Most of the houses we design tend to cost in the range of $800 per square foot. We built the Grouf House for slightly over $200 per square foot.

The only way to accomplish that is to use building systems that dramatically reduce labor; in this case we employed metal building technology that is more typical of industrial/commercial buildings. The steel structure and metal panel exterior of this building went up in about 3 weeks, as opposed to probably 4 months for stick framing. The metal panels were prefinished on the interior and we left them exposed, eliminating the need for interior finishes on the exterior walls, such as drywall and paint. The concrete slab foundation was left exposed as the lower level finish floor. And the structural steel framework was painted but otherwise left exposed as an architectural expression of the design. Wherever possible we eliminated the need for finishes.

The site was an already level graded pad with extraordinary views of Sonoma County. The center of the building is almost totally glass in response to that view, but all of the rooms in the house have beautiful views out to the varied valley landscape. In many of the rooms we used sliding glass doors (with the lockset height modified) as the windows, in response to the scale of the building.

Source : Lundberg Design

Archipelago House

Yossawat — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:45:25 +0000

Devid Report presented Archipelago House from Tham & Videgård Hansson website. It’s a nice house. This is “Summer house in Stockholm archipelago” by Devid Report.Stockholm architects Tham & Videgård Hansson has developed a nice light-weight building in wood and glass as a summer house in the Stockholm archipelago. The layout of the plan is generated by the specifics of the site, the house being placed on the flat surface between two mountain rocks and turning simultaneously towards the sun the south and frontally towards the sea in the west. With the small rooms located in the back the rest of the house stand out as an open platform crisscrossed by sliding glass. The house is organised in layers. The big rooms expand in open relationshp to the wooden deck outside of the house. The zig-zagged layout also offers several outside places sheltered from the strong wind.

A light-weight building in wood and glass, a summerhouse in the Stockholm archipelago.

A continuous dissolution of space in three steps. The house is organised in layers, the big rooms expand in open relationship to the wooden deck. A horizontal wooden trellis diffuses daylight and enhances the character of one continuous space, where the distinction of interior/exterior becomes subordinated.

For the interior, the starting point has been the direct relation to the dramatic archipelago landscape, with the objective to offer within a simple frame – a platform – several diverse readings of the relation space – nature.

Multiplicity of readings. As a result of the large glass panes and the prevailing conditions of ligh, reflexions and mirror like effects come up and add aquality where nature, space and horizon interacts.

Tham & Videgård Hansson architects was founded by Bolle Tham and Martin Videgård Hansson back in 1999. The practice works in the wide field of contemporary architecture, planning and interior design, in projects for private, corporate and public clients.

Source : Davide Report, Tham & Videgård Hansson

Villa Näckros : Modern floting home

Yossawat — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:01:01 +0000

Näckros Villa designed by Staffan Strindberg architecture in Sweden. The 12×12 metre Villa has six rooms and a kitchen, 178 sq metres of living area, 125 square metres of terrace and 74 square metres of windows but is crammed with technologies to enhance your lifestyle and create an ambience of tranquillity and harmony with nature.

“The idea of living so close to the water and nature is really thrilling. The design is focused on bringing the surroundings inside, to get the feeling of the water into your living .”

With water comes a special light and the reflections from the water that dance on the ceiling. Strindberg’s experience and fascination with water and light led him to explore far and wide, and he was particularly drawn to the “the beautiful treatment of the light that you can find in the old Turkish villas climbing the slope of the Bosporus around Istanbul where they mainly let the light in from below, reflected from the water.”

In building the site, Strindberg tried to foresee what could happen around the site, and then got more and more interested in the idea of not just one but several water houses and how to arrange the interior of the house for this imaginary pattern.

“On one side you have the dock and on the other side you have the water, one official side and one private. How do you get the most out of the privacy and how do you make a welcoming entrance yet a distinct border for privacy?”

The entrance design takes into account various dock heights and those environments without a tide. The living room is as close to the water as possible and sleeping facilities are positioned so you go to sleep at the same level as the surrounding water. The layout is concentrated on opening the house to the water. The kitchen is close to the entrance and faces the quay but is also a part of the open area that includes the living room and the terrace.

Strindberg also had to address what the feeling and ambience should be based on, such as “what is a floating home, what does it stand for, does it have to look like other kinds of floating things that man uses, like boats?” “Should it even borrow details to associate to other floating vessels?” “What does it express in its design?”

These thoughts led to the decision that it should be a house, not a boat. “A house that takes care of the special qualities of the surroundings,” says Strindberg.

Source : Arkinetia, gismag, Modern Marine Home, Interior Design

Theatre Agora design by UNStudio

Yossawat — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:25:11 +0000

UNStudio, The presentation of the new award ‘Architect of the Year 2007’ took place during an animated gathering in the Dutch architecture institute in Rotterdam last Saturday 07.07.07. They won three of the five categories, and was named the overall winner of the award. Theatre Agora is one of their project that present high architectonic qualities, the professionalism and innovative qualities.

The new Agora Theatre is part of the Master plan for the city center of Lelystad and will play an important role both daytime and nightime in this area of the city. The clustering of cultural and social activities in this new quarter will give Lelystad an outspoken cultural face.

The overall design of the Agora Theatre is inspired by kaleidescopic forms, while the colours used in the building originate from photographs of the sky above Lelystad. The exterior colour was distilled from photographs taken during sunset, whilst the blue found in the interior originates from a cloudless sky. Due to the kaleidescopic, diamond structure of the building, light falling on the various surfaces conveys the impression of constantly changing colours and forms. In daytime the shape of the theatre has a sculptural effect.

The grand café, also open during the day, connects to the evening square. From the different lobbies of the entrance of the theatre a beautiful view of the Green Care is presented. The vertical foyer, which swings through the entire building, connects different theatre and congress halls on the different floors.

Source : UNStudio, Architectenweb.nl, Interior Design