Lemoal Lemoal Architectes builds translucent half-timbered tennis pavilion

Paris studio Lemoal Lemoal Architectes has completed a half-timbered changing pavilion at the Garden Tennis Club of Cabourg on the north coast of France.

Built to contain changing facilities and toilets needed by the tennis club, the pavilion is designed to be a contemporary reinterpretation of the traditional half-timbered buildings found in Normandy.

"Half-timbered architecture is a local, old way to build in Normandy, which combines a timber structure with a brick or earth filling," said Christophe Lemoal, co-founder of Lemoal Lemoal Architectes.

"Our conceptual idea of this project is to keep the timber structure and to highlight it by removing the filling and have a second wall set back behind," he told Dezeen.

The small pavilion is constructed with wooden exposed beams and studs, which, unlike in traditional half-timbered construction, are left unfilled.

Behind this framework, a double skin of translucent polycarbonate acts as the rain screen and turns the building into a light box.

"The building is contemporary because of the way we transformed a traditional local way of building," explained Lemoal.

"The structure reduced to its minimum. The project is also minimal, one outside structure, translucide wall and a roof!"

Along with the traditional timber frame, terracotta tiles were chosen as they could be manufactured locally in the town of Bavent.

"We always work with local materials on our projects, the timber and terracotta are an old and local way of building in Normandy," said Lemoal.

Inside, the building is split into male and female sections, which both have separate entrances. Both parts have a changing area and toilets placed alongside a corridor that runs the length of the building.

The all-white interiors combined with the polycarbonate walls create bright spaces within the small building.

"The polycarbonate is the third material on the project, it is the answer to make this building a glass box keeping the privacy of the users," explained Lemoal.

"The building has to be translucent to answer to the program of cloakrooms," he continued. "From outside, we can't see anything inside and from inside we have a lot of light. Cloakrooms are usually reduced to back scene in building."

Lemoal Lemoal Architectes is a Paris-based studio that was established by Christophe Lemoal and his brother Jesse in 2010.

The Garden Tennis Club of Cabourg is now part of the Circuit National des Grands Tournois de tennis in France. Last year Marc Mimram Architecture & Associés incorporated greenhouses the stands of the Court Simonne Mathieu at Roland Garros, home of the French Open.

Photography is by Javier Callejas.

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Project credits:

Architect: Lemoal Lemoal Architectes
Contractor: Ville de Cabourg
Landscaper: Octobre Office
Economist: Loizillon Ingénierie
BET fluides: Delta Fluides
BET structure: IBATEC
Control Office: Qualiconsult

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Original beams and brickwork add warmth to pared-back Madrid apartment

Architect Leticia Saá has woven historical features such as exposed brickwork and wooden pillars into the minimal interior of this open-plan apartment in Madrid.

Located in Madrid's Lavapiés neighbourhood, the two-bedroom apartment is spread across the top floor of a three-storey residential building that dates back to 1900.

The apartment had been unoccupied for 35 years prior to its renovation, which has been carried out by local architect Leticia Saá.

Its owners – a young couple – had previously lived in a tiny and cluttered flat, so were keen for their new home to feel large and spacious.

As a result, Saá has given the 130-square-metre apartment a largely open-plan layout where the bathrooms are the only completely private areas.

Social spaces such as the living room, kitchen and home office are located on one half of the plan, while the bedrooms and bathrooms are on the other.

The two sides are linked by a hallway which wraps around the building's stairwell and central courtyard.

To soften the appearance of the interior, which has been given a minimalist fit-out, Saá sought to incorporate some of the building's original quirks.

Time-worn brick walls, wooden beams and pillars have been preserved, as well as a brick fireplace. Surrounding surfaces have been freshened up with a simple coat of white paint.

"
To create a space which exudes calm and serenity inside the hustle of the city, we wanted to use a minimalist but warm decorative and furnishing style," explained Saá.

"
The architecture of the 1900s had a very strong impact in the historic city centre, so we wanted to recover the building techniques of that period and reveal them in some parts of the house."

To enhance the feeling of the apartment being one large, continuous space, Saá wanted concrete flooring to appear throughout the interior. This is in exception of the living room, where wide oak floorboards have been installed instead.

The change of flooring here is meant to signal a change in the mood of the space.

"I wanted to create a cosy and natural environment and make the living room different from the rest of the apartment," Saá told Dezeen.

The entrance hallway has been conceived as transitional space between the inside and outside. An array of houseplants sit in one corner, and a small interior window has been punctuated in a wall to create the sensation of a patio or a street.

The washbasin of the bathroom has been placed outside of its door, intended to act as a visual barrier between the guest quarters and the rest of the home.

"It was also placed here because of the lovely natural light which comes across the window," Saá said.

In the kitchen, which is located between the hall and the living room, Saá has continued the pared-back aesthetic. The space features handle-less plywood cupboards, a stainless-steel backsplash and a breakfast island with a white-steel frame.

A cardboard lamp by Dutch design studio Waarmakers hangs directly above.

"We consider [the kitchen] as an integrated element in the house," added Saá, "That's why the island has this light appearance, and only an induction cooker appears atop the counter."

A mezzanine level that's used as an extra guest room or reading corner sits above the kitchen and is accessed via a step ladder.

A home office and utility space are also located opposite the kitchen.

Like Saá, many architects opt to keep historic elements – White Arrow preserved ornate door frames and coving in its renovation of an apartment in Berlin, while TAAB6 conserved barrel-vaulted brick ceilings in its overhaul of a Barcelona townhouse.

Photography is by Iñaki Domingo of IDC Studio.

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T Sakhi infuses Murano glass with metal wires for Tasting Threads tableware

Beirut design studio T Sakhi combined Venetian Murano glass with recycled metal threads and powder to create a pair of textured glassware collections.

The two tableware collections, titled Tasting Thread and Nomads, were both the product of T Sakhi's experiments with Murano glass in a bid to achieve new textures.

Founders and sisters Tessa and Tara Sakhi incorporated metal debris into each of the pieces. They used aluminium, copper, brass and other metal powder collected from the waste streams of factories in their local area.

The Lebanese-Polish designers created them as functional objects for everyday use that would bring people together, allowing them to interact and share moments over food and drink.

Their Tasting Threads tableware collection comprises a series of colourful long and short glasses, small shot glasses, flat plates and deep bowls.

Each of the objects are coloured in a variety of bright hues chosen to look like by precious stones, ranging from alexandrite and amethyst to amber, ruby and cobalt.

The handcrafted objects are a fusion of two Mediterranean cultures. The design duo worked with local craftsmen in Venice to sculpt the Murano glass into objects that reference traditional Lebanese shapes.

"Lebanon and Italy have very similar ways of lifestyle, similar social norms, whether in social gatherings, in dining settings or their values in craftsmanship," said the sisters. .

"We want to emphasise this strong duality with the craftsmen enriching the experience with their technique and expertise of mouth-blown Murano," they added.

While the Tasting Threads designs feature a regular, glossy effect, the Nomad collection features a craquelure effect. A sand-blasting technique was used to create a rougher finish.

This series comprises a collection of large and small alcohol drinking flasks, or carafes, designed for all occasions from "solitary moments" to social gatherings.

"We wanted to create a universal accessory any culture can relate to: alcohol," the duo told Dezeen. "It is a substance that disrupts the social mask imposed by social etiquettes, and reveals human emotions in its rawest forms."

Each piece in the series is named after a human virtue or emotion: Isra (wisdom), Dalia (faith), Kalla (beauty), Mayra (rebellion), Hera (vengeance), and Frea (infidelity).

To make each of the pieces, the designers start by selecting the mixture of coloured particles that will create the overall shade of the glassware before pressing the molten Murano glass onto the particles.

The metal wires are infused into the glass when it is still hot, embedded at different temperatures to soften the material in order to fully integrate it into the glass.

"It demands meticulous work of timing and temperature levels to avoid breaking the fragile glass," explained the designers.

"During the cooling process, the metal contracts and the glass solidifies, so it's all about not having one action overrule the other."

The designers were due to release a third collection alongside Tasting Threads and Nomad, however the launch was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, which led to the furnaces being closed in Venice.

When released, the third series, called I Hear You Tremble, will comprise "extra-terrestrial" glassware objects. Also incorporating aluminium waste, the pieces are made using a different technique that results in "stone-like" formations.

"It is all about trial and error, we experiment with raw materials, and try to test the strength and limits of each material with different manipulations," said the sisters.

"Our techniques aspire a creation associated with chaos, mystery, randomness and precision, spirit and matter and finally, natural vs man-made, emphasizing on nature's mutation with human intervention."

"We learned how to embrace surprises and accidents, which are undeniable for the evolution of any process," they added.

Tessa and Tara Sakhi are not the only designers to embrace imperfections when making glassware. Stockholm-based Studio EO created a collection of colourful vases made from glass and fragments of discarded marble found in quarries.

Describing the creations as "part chaos and part control", studio founder Erik Olovsson re-shapes the broken parts with a hammer and chisel to make them fit for their glass counterpart.

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Poisson Blanc cabin by Naturehumaine has a white pointed metal roof

A gabled titanium roof and wooden walls form this white house that architecture studio Naturehumaine has perched on a wooded site in Québec, Canada.

Naturehumaine designed the Poisson Blanc cabin in Laurentides, Québec with the striking shape to take cues from the rocky, inclined site. Its name references the nearby lake and park called Poisson Blanc, which translates as white fish.

"The concept of this chalet results from the rugged topography of its site, a sloping terrain on which the project is anchored in the bedrock, revealing an angular and monolithic architecture," said Naturehumaine.

The wooden cladding is painted white to match the titanium coating on the roof, shown covered in snow these photographs. Each wall is also fronted by a set of windows outlined with aluminium framing.

Measuring 1200 square feet (112 square metres), the house has a compact floor plan and two levels. "Its shape and its most minimalist expression allows for optimal compactness and a reduced footprint on its site," the studio added.

On the south facade, one large window provides generous views of the surrounding landscape and lake, while another wraps around one of the house's four corners.

A pair of long, narrow windows on the opposite face match the glass front door on the tiny dwelling.

Two wooden footbridges attach to the house, one of which leads to the only entrance, and are detailed with slender metal roping used as railings.

The living area, kitchen and master bedroom are located on the cabin's ground floor. The second level is burrowed into the hillside and houses storage, a playroom and another bedroom.

Inside, exposed joists are painted white and span across the ceiling of the interiors. The vaulted construction is intended as a nod to the name of the nearby park and lake with a formation that takes cues from the ribbed skeleton of fish.

"Visible from the living spaces, the criss-crossing structure of the roof echoes the name of the lake by recalling the skeleton of a fish, as does its immaculate colour," the studio said.

In the open plan living area, a built-in storage unit covers one of the walls to create ample storage for books and firewood. The shelf is constructed from maple veneer panels that continue into the kitchen to form cabinets.

Additional furnishings in the kitchen include a pair of shelves fixed to the wall above the sink, a simple dining table and set of chairs and two geometric pendant light fixtures.

In the half-bathroom, the floor and walls are covered in grey tiles. A slender window with translucent glass occupies one of the walls in the small space and a built-in wood vanity attaches to another.

Naturehumaine was founded in 2004 by Stéphane Rasselet and Marc-André Plasse and has completed a number projects in the Québec region. Examples include a holiday home that comprises two blackened wood cabins and a steel-clad volume raised on a concrete plinth.

Photography is by Raphaël Thibodeau.

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Thao & the Get Down Stay Down Films a Synchronized Music Video on a Zoom Call

Zoom has been having its moment as many companies’ platform of choice for virtual meetings and conference calls, but Thao & the Get Down Stay Down recently found a more creative and amusing use for the digital communication tool. With its tour paused and everyone stuck at home, the Oakland-based band decided to shoot a music video for its new single, “Phenom,” that begins with Thao Nguyen, who leads the indie group, starting a Zoom call.

Centered on the singer, the two-and-a-half minute number features eight dancers who move in choreographed synchronicity across multiple screens. They appear to drip water onto each other and create a single, flexing figure throughout the video.

Nguyen recently told The Verge that the band rehearsed for five hours before taking a day to film the entire piece. Equipped with strong wifi connections, the group utilized a metronome before beginning to ensure they were all on the same beat. “Certain dance moves had to be adjusted to look good in Zoom’s gallery view and didn’t translate if they were too chaotic. We found that the moves had to be really clean and clear and simple. I had to be the focal point and if too much was happening you wouldn’t know exactly where to look,” she said.

Find more of Thao & the Get Down Stay Down’s visual work on Instagram and YouTube, and head to Spotify for a full album archive. (via Uncrate)

 

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