Yellow grates filter light into apartment building by Laurent Troost Architectures

Bright yellow metal grates that take cues from a mango tree detail the facade of this apartment building in Manaus, Brazil designed by local studio Laurent Troost Architectures.

Manga-Vila Santa Thereza is a housing complex in Manaus, a city in Brazil situated along the banks of the Negro River near the Amazon rainforest. It comprises 12 units, three of each type, studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom, spread across two buildings that are connected by a small courtyard.

Yellow grates detail the east and west faces of the rectangular buildings and protrude from their rooftops. The bright colour used on the grid-like material draws from a mango tree located on the site.

"On the facades most exposed to the sun (east and west) a metal grid was installed that filters the light and the views, creating a yellowish halo in line with the mango tree that originated the project concept," said Laurent Troost Architectures.

The metal grating filters light that passes through reducing solar incidence and acting as a mechanism for cooling the residential units and allowing for cross ventilation throughout the building.

It is among a series of passive design strategies included in the 1,039-square-metre building, which accommodates a mix of residents, including students, single people, young couples and families.

Other energy-efficient practices are photovoltaic roof panels that produce light for the common areas and the gap located between the volumes, which reduces heat transfer.

"The Vila Santa Thereza building tries to present conditions of passive sustainability and identical spatial qualities for all units in order to achieve social equality," the studio said.

"These passive sustainability characteristics of the building allow the demand for energy consumption of each housing unit to be well below the local average."

On the north and south elevations an assortment of various-sized windows are arranged across the white walls.

Each unit is outfitted with floor to ceiling windows that provide views of the surrounding neighbourhood and the distant Rio Negro. Inside the apartments, the kitchen and laundry area open up to the living and dining space.

Situated between the two buildings is a partially covered courtyard anchored by concrete columns painted bright yellow to match the screens installed across the facade. The patio doubles as a car park for residents to store vehicles and also features a patch of vegetation with a mango tree.

Two sets of staircases against the back wall of the outdoor space lead up to the residential floors. On the top floor there is a shared recreational and dining space that is wrapped in the yellow grating.

Laurent Troost Architectures, which is based in Manaus, also completed a residence in Manaus with a weathered steel roof that folds over the concrete structure. The project was the Dezeen Award winner of the Rural house of the year 2019.

Other apartment buildings in Brazil include a residential tower designed by Pininfarina that takes cues from car design and a design by Isay Weinfeld in São Paulo that comprises stacked volumes lined with vegetation.

Photography is by Maíra Acayaba.

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Project credits:

Architecture: Laurent Troost Architectures
SD phase team: Laurent Troost, Diogo Lazari, Raquel Brasil dos Reis
CD phase team: Laurent Troost, Raquel Brasil dos Reis
Structure: Thais Nina
MEP: Eng. Harlen Santos
Landscape: Laurent Troost, Hana Eto Gall

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A Disorienting Short Film by Lydia Cambron Recreates ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ in Quarantine

Eerie, hypnotic, and faithfully depicting the dismal reality that is 2020, a new short film by Lydia Cambron envisions her recent quarantine experience under the frame of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. In 2020: An Isolation Odyssey, the New York City-based designer recreates the 1968 version’s iconic ending as a way to “(poke) fun at the navel-gazing saga of life alone and indoors,” she writes in a statement.

Positioned vertically, the characters’ movements are synchronized perfectly, but while the original film’s Keir Dullea wades through the ornate home in an astronaut suit, Cambron sports a face mask and latex gloves. The reenactment is situated in the designer’s one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment, and while it maintains the domestic qualities of the original, it also features contemporary updates, like a MacBook sitting on the table rather than a lavish meal. She even parallels the minutes-long credits precisely.

Cambron notes that the contemporary version considers a similarly disorienting life. “Multitasking while #wfh, conjuring guilt or longing with unused exercise equipment, your entire being reduced to a measure of time—these scenes all illustrate the absurd comedy of trying to maintain control during this unprecedented and unpredictable time,” she explains.

Follow Cambron’s parodic explorations—which include an annual exhibition titled JONALDDUDD— on Instagram and Vimeo. (via Daring Fireball)

 

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La Shed Architecture creates translucent barn to give cows "a better quality of life"

Architecture studio La Shed Architecture has built a large agricultural barn with polycarbonate sheeting walls for a farm in Montérégie, Quebec.

The Montréal studio designed the barn to improve the quality of life for both the animals and the workers at organic cheese farm Au Gré des Champs.

To create a building that would blend into the landscape harmoniously La Shed Architecture chose to use materials commonly found on farms to construct the barn.

The building's framework was made from spruce, with hemlock planks used for the walls. Its sheer facade was constructed from two layers of polycarbonate sheets – one clear and one translucent.

Photo is by Virginie Gosselin

The decision to use a translucent exterior for the barn was based around the idea that natural light enhances both well-being and productivity.

"For visitors, these translucent facades allow them to make the link between interior spaces and exterior grazing spaces, and thus better understand the living environment of cows," said La Shed Architecture coordinator Christian Laporte.

According to the architect, during the day the walls let through so much natural light that it feels like being outdoors, while at night the barn lights up like a lantern.

"By day it feels like being outside," he told Dezeen.

"At night, the opposite effect occurs, and the artificial light illuminating the interior of the barn filters through these translucent walls. The barn, therefore, becomes a landmark in the middle of the fields, like a large luminous lantern."

La Shed Architecture also used polycarbonate sheeting because it exposes the internal structure of the wall, adding to the barn's contemporary character.

Galvanised sheet metal was used for the overhanging roof, which offers shelter for visitors when the farm hosts events.

Large shutters on the longitudinal walls allow for natural ventilation, and in winter time the space is heated by the cows' own body heat.

The studio also had to take into account technical restraints related to free-stabling, including having large spaces for the cows as well as specific routes for milking cows.

"The farming family wanted to offer both their cows and their employees a better quality of life," Laporte said.

"For the cows, this new barn meant the end of tie-stall housing, where cows are confined in stalls; they would henceforth operate in free stalls, allowing them greater freedom of movement," he continued.

"For the employees, this new barn should allow them to work in a more spacious, bright and pleasant environment."

Photo is by Virginie Gosselin

In addition to spatial constraints, the studio had to take the habits of the barn's new inhabitants into consideration.

"We had to create a route to facilitate the movement of the cows in the building according to the order of the tasks to be accomplish during the day," Laporte explained.  "Cows love stability and routine."

Other innovative barn buildings include HilberinkBosch Architects' asymmetrical barn made from wood felled from own land and Asher deGroot of Motiv Architects' Swallowfield Barn that was built together with the local community.

Photography is by Maxime Brouillet unless otherwise stated.

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Whale Design Lab references Louis Kahn for makeover of Mài Apartment in Vietnam

Geometric forms and graphic terrazzo surfaces feature in this duplex apartment in Ho Chi Minh City that has been updated by Whale Design Lab.

Locally based studio Whale Design Lab revamped the formerly lacklustre interiors of the Mài Apartment to reflect the client's penchant for modernist architecture.

A particular point of reference was the work of hugely influential American architect Louis Kahn, whose imposing, monolithic buildings often feature geometric openings.

"Its owner is interested in ideas of modernist architecture about the form and its contextual transition from Western discourse to Vietnamese tropical living environment and material vernacular," the studio said.

"If these thoughts are applied to the design, how will they conflict and harmonize with the apartment format today – a typical monotonous template found in gentrified urban development?"

Unable to make any significant structural changes to the 200-square-metre floor plan, the studio instead decided to define different living areas using shapes – in a nod to Kahn's architectural style.

All of the doorways and entryways to rooms in the apartment have been made arched in form.

A curved volume that juts out from the corner of the living area has then been punctuated with a huge porthole that glimpses through to the study on the apartment's upper level.

Directly underneath this volume lies the kitchen, where the splashback, countertop, breakfast island and floor has been crafted from white-marble terrazzo.

Terrazzo was specifically chosen by the studio in reference to the "material sensation" it caused in Ho Chi Minh City, commonly referred to as Saignon, during the 1950s and 60s.

"Modernist architecture was introduced into the south of Vietnam in the mid-20th century," explained the studio.

"The popular construction materials of modern buildings in the United States such as exposed-aggregate surface, terrazzo and cement became trendy in Saigon."

The materiality of the apartment also informed its name: "mài" translates to hone or polish in English, much like how terrazzo has to be polished after being inlaid with chips of marble, glass or granite.

Terrazzo extends through the rest of the home to cover the corridor floor, as well as the steps and balustrade of the dog-leg staircase. A terrazzo with finer flecks of aggregate also lines the wall in one of the bathrooms.

The Mài Apartment joins a number of residential projects that make bold use of terrazzo. Others include House P by MDDM Studio, where terrazzo inset with orange, beige and deep-green aggregate lines the bathroom and the stairs.

White Rabbit House by Gundry & Ducker also boasts striking checkerboard-style terrazzo flooring.

Photography is by Trieu Chien.

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Project credits:

Design: Whale Design Lab
Lead architects: Le Nguyen Nguyen Hanh

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O'Donnell + Tuomey creates timber and concrete pedestrian bridge at University College Cork

Architecture studio O'Donnell + Tuomey used rows of laminated timber to create Cavanagh Bridge, which has been built over Ireland's River Lee to improve connections to University College Cork.

The Irish firm designed the pedestrian bridge as part of a wider masterplan to improve connections from the local university campus to surrounding streets.

Named Cavanagh Bridge, the crossing over the River Lee connects the college's quadrangle with the Western Road, and gives students direct access to an area of green space across the river from the university.

By placing the bridge at an angle to the river, O'Donnell + Tuomey enabled it to join onto the route of an existing path.

It was constructed from two concrete abutments connected by a deck made of long-span beams of laminated timber, which are supported by two steel beams. The bridge's floor and handrails are made from larch and Jatoba wood.

"The form of the bridge is articulated in three parts," explained O'Donnell + Tuomey co-founder John Tuomey.

"It diagonally straddles the stream in a sinuous continuation of established pathways, rather than disrupt the natural flow with a right-angled river crossing," he continued.

"The bridge alignment is cranked to pull together various paths into a coherent confluence of pedestrian movement."

The two concrete abutments each contain a set of steps and a wheelchair-accessible route, as well as incorporating seating along its walls.

On the river's north bank the studio created archways within the concrete structure to allow floodwater to pass through when the river is in full flow.

The structure of the bridge was designed so that each part has been built from the material most appropriate for its destined use.

"Long-span beams of laminated timber land on sloping concrete buttresses, with each side adapted to its topographical conditions," explained Tuomey.

"The 27-metre clear span is at the technical limit of the laminated beams," he added. "Each element – concrete, timber and steel – is structurally independent but mutually supportive."

The bridge is one of three projects that O'Donnell + Tuomey has designed near University College Cork's 19th century quadrangle.

In 2005 the studio completed the Glucksman Gallery, which is located along the riverside walk from the bridge, while its Student Hub project will be open for the next university semester.

According to Tuomey, each of the projects was designed to reinforce and support the historic quad building and, as a result, they each share a common design philosophy.

"The gallery, bridge and student hub all support the landscape setting of the central quad, reinforcing its pivotal position within the campus core," said the architect.

"Like the historic quad, these contextually connected interventions are arranged around through-going lines of outdoor circulation."

"The designs share common strategies; each surrenders a piece of its own territory for the common good of the public realm," he continued.

"The new buildings act as dynamic elements, vectors of sympathetic change that consolidate the conditions of the given situation."

Dublin-based O'Donnell + Tuomey is led by Tuomey and Sheila O'Donnell. The pair of Irish architects were the 2015 recipients of the Royal Gold Medal.

Other projects by the studio include a faceted brick student centre at London School of Economics, the Lyric Theatre in Belfast and the Photographers' Gallery in central London.

Photography is by Jed Niezgoda.

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