Timber health centre surrounds courtyard of medicinal plants

MAAJ Architectes placed a cross-shaped courtyard for growing medicinal plants at the heart of a timber-framed health centre in the French town of Taverne.

The Taverny Medical Centre brings together several previously disparate healthcare facilities under one roof.

Because of the busy road next door MAAJ Architectes, decided to turn the building inwards.

The plan of the Taverny Medical Centre draws on the ancient cloister typology common in monasteries.

"In this peri-urban landscape, the aim was to set up an anchorage to the new building," MAAJ Architectes co-founder Marc-Antonie Richard-Kowienski told Dezeen.

"Thus the large plot was reshaped into a domestic landscape around the health centre."

Four individual metal pitched roofs with skylights sit at each corner of the centre's square plan

The cross-shaped central courtyard is wrapped by the centre's main circulation area.

"The central patio offers several advantages such as natural lighting for the whole building," said the practice.

"It also serves as an open extension of the waiting rooms and acts as an intimate and sensory place where medicinal plants are grown, a reminder of the health and curative purpose of the centre."

Waiting areas are nestled into each corner protruding into the courtyard, and staircases positioned along its north and south edges.

Treatment rooms are placed around the perimeter.

Its exterior walls are infilled with wooden sheets, with only small windows to shut out noise and views from the road.

A glazed section of the exterior envelope marks the centre's entrance, which is approached via a small landscaped garden that helps to create a buffer between it and the road.

Interiors are pale and calm, with exposed timber between the glazing, white ceilings and white balustrades of thin steel.

MAAJ Architectes was founded in 2004 by Richard-Kowienski and Anne-Julie Martinon.

Norweigian practice Hille Melbye recently made similar use of the courtyard typology for a psychiatric centre in Oslo, with garden spaces that are intended to act as an extension of the therapy taking place inside.

Photography is by François-Xavier Da Cunha Leal.

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ALT uses aerospace-inspired packaging for its "mind-expanding" liquid cannabis

Science, aeronautics and NASA inspired the Very Polite Agency's packaging design for ALT, a liquid cannabis product for people who want a mind-expanding rather than purely medicinal high.

The Canadian creative agency worked on every aspect of the brand identity with the ALT founders, including the name.

"ALT" is a play on the words "altitude" and "altered state" that eventually evolved into an acronym — Advanced Liquid Technologies.

The product has a couple of unique selling points: it is liquid in form, and it promises a controlled but deep high that, according to the brand, opens up neural pathways and gives users a chance to see things differently.

Very Polite saw a potential market among people interested in self-improvement based on scientific approaches, and they designed the packaging accordingly.

"ALT was rooted in scientific development, which we found interesting in a space where cannabis often has an 'organic' or 'granola' association, both in aesthetic and overall tone," Very Polite partner and head of creative Dylan Rekert told Dezeen.

"We wanted to pull from the science element without it feeling pharmaceutical. We had to find a way to make it work, and to us that came in the idea of performance."

This brought Very Polite to the aeronautical and moon-landing theme — not only was it scientific, it conjured associations with human aspiration and achievement that seemed right for ALT.

At the same time, the overall effect had to suit the demographic by being discrete and refined — "something they would have no issue displaying on their coffee table", according to Rekert.

They took their visual cues from NASA, incorporating a minimal black, white and silver colour palette with dashes of red.

The visual identity pairs navigational elements such as crosshairs and GPS coordinates with lean, sans serif typography.

When it came to the packaging design, space food was a major reference; ALT comes vacuum-sealed in silver foil, looking like a luxury version of the meals astronauts get on voyages.

The box within contains five resealable vials of ALT, with dosage levels clearly labelled.

The product comes in either a "functional micro-dose" version with five milligrams of THC per vial or a "deeper expression" with 10 milligrams of THC per vial.

ALT's approach is in contrast to other new premium cannabis companies such as Dosist and Standard Dose, which have tried to associate themselves with wellness.

It is also a departure from the jokey or kitschy branding that still dominates in the sector.

"Ultimately, the cannabis industry is a pun-filled market we didn't want to fall into," said Rekert.

"What we created was a strong, aspirational concept that approached 'getting high' from a different perspective, and the idea of doing something to expand potential for yourself," he continued.

"The same way meditation has gone from a 'hippy' thing to a widely socially accepted and integrated practice, using ALT is a form of modern connectivity, evolved from the perception of simply 'getting high'," he said.

"It can be a cerebral drug, with the right dosage, expanding the mind intentionally."

ALT will be available to buy in North America, which has seen an explosion in cannabis-related products and technologies since US states began legalising recreational marijuana use in 2012.

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Prepare for Valentine's Day with our new romantic restaurants Pinterest board

To get you in the mood for Valentine's Day we've created a new Pinterest board showcasing romantic restaurants. Venues featured include an elegant eatery inside New York's museum Fotografiska and a dining space in Venice decorated with decadent furnishings. Follow Dezeen on Pinterest or visit our updated board to see more.

Ornately painted walls and velvet furnishings create a decadent setting for L'Avventura restaurant in Stockholm

The board also features a high-end restaurant in Copenhagen that projects glowing northern lights above diners and a dining space that boasts a similar atmosphere to a "lost palace".

The Beefbar steakhouse is located just off Champs Elysées in Paris

Other additions to the Pinterest board include a sumptuous steakhouse in Paris that features jewel tones and art nouveau wall panelling, as well as an intimate Italian restaurant located in a neglected 20th century cinema in Stockholm.

Dezeen's Pinterest account features thousands of images, organised into hundreds of boards. Follow us on Pinterest to keep up to date with our latest pins.

 

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Renesa uses terracotta-brick walls to carve up interiors of Indian showroom

Room dividers composed of hollow terracotta bricks frame the products within this home decor showroom in the northwestern Indian city of Amritsar.

Designed by New Delhi-based studio Renesa, the 1,300-square-foot showroom belongs to homeware brand Rustickona.

The brand, who has named the showroom The Terramater, wanted a retail space that felt homely and welcoming – a contrast to the space's raw concrete walls, floors and monolithic display plinths.

To foster a sense of familiarity amongst customers, Renesa inserted a series of walls made of hollow red blocks called Jali bricks, a material typically used in the construction of buildings in India.

Each decorative brick is perforated with a grid of square and circular holes that allow light to filter through the space.

The holes also allow the transmission of air throughout the showroom and help to lower the temperature during the warm summer months.

The brick walls have been carefully arranged to form a series of smaller, more intimate display and exhibition areas for the brand's furniture, lighting and decorative objects.

Some of the brick walls cut through the showroom diagonally, while others are curved to create alcoves.

"The project experiments with the very idea of space, pushing the boundary of the showroom to act as a gallery where the sculptures and the products become a part of the design," the studio explained.

"It allows the customers to interact with the products through the various pockets created and get a sense of their inherent quality."

After arriving at reception, customers are guided through the showroom by archways within the walls that align to create a pathway.

At the back of the showroom is a wall punctuated by deep-set arched windows that cast tall shadows.

Directly in front is a circular exhibition plinth surrounded by light-coloured gravel, which is used for displaying outdoor furniture.

Wooden shelves that present the brand's selection of ceramics stretch across the periphery walls.

Leafy palms and banana plants have also been dotted around to soften the showroom's hard shell and offer a colour contrast to the concrete and terracotta.

Established back in 2006, Renesa is led by father-and-son duo Sanjay and Sanchit Arora.

Previous projects by the studio include a whimsical games cafe in the Indian city of Gurugram, which takes design cues from ancient sundials and confusing video games.

Photography is by Niveditaa Gupta.

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LEGO Releases 864-Piece International Space Station Set That’s Out of This World

All images © LEGO

On February 1, LEGO launched a new Expert Creator that’s on a mission to explore outer space. Comprised of 864 pieces, the International Space Station set is equipped with a robotic arm for satellite deployment, a miniature dock, and two astronauts ready to traverse the built-in spacewalk. It also has eight movable solar panels, three cargo spacecrafts, and booklet detailing the history of the design. Fully built, the realistic model stands more than 7 inches high, 12 inches long, and 19 inches wide.

Christoph Ruge designed the kit as part of a proposal for the 10th anniversary of the iconic brand’s ideas program, which has released a variety of sets with themes like dinosaur fossils and The Flintstones. Get your own miniature spacecraft on LEGO’s site, and see if you can put it together in the 92 minutes it takes the real model to orbit the earth. (via designboom)

 

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