Russian studio Nido mixed different volumes and neutral sandy colours to add depth to this minimalist apartment in Moscow.
Located in the centre of the Russian capital where apartments are notoriously small, the 111-square-metre apartment – called RS_D – features creative solutions to maximise space.
The RS_D apartment is a single-storey home in the middle of Moscow
The studio aimed to create a multi-functional and "convenient" home that would include both private and more social open-plan areas.
"The assessment of all possible life scenarios and the creation of a convenient structure and floor plan were the primary points of the project," Nido told Dezeen.
"For us, this project is interesting due to the work with a variety of volumes, textures and materials," it said.
The kitchen, dining and living rooms have been merged together
To maximise space, the studio focused on improving the layout and creating a savvy floor plan for RS_D.
The designers moved the kitchen into the apartment's foyer so that it is easily accessed when entering the house. From this area, the space opens up into the living and dining room.
The studio also decided to place the living room on a raised platform in an effort to create multiple layers for the interior
A master bedroom and a smaller children's bedroom are located on the other side of the apartment, offering the client some private space.
Wooden cupboards used for storage are tucked out of sight along the walls of the hallway.
"Navigation is organized in such a way as to preserve through traffic in the main part of the apartment while providing privacy and visually clear boundaries of each of the functional areas," the studio said.
A large travertine stone sink runs along one wall
Materials were chosen to "soften" the neat and compact layout. The furniture textures are smooth, soft and natural with a warm color palette – terracotta and sandy shades are designed to recall beaches and travelling.
Natural light enters through a large living room window, which provides views out onto the apartment's terrace.
Storage space and Mutina blocks decorate the minimalist apartment
A large travertine stone sink runs along one wall, while Mutina blocks designed by Spanish architect Patricia Urquiola have been used to decorate another wall.
"Neat and tight forms are softened by the choice of the materials and their diversity," said the studio. "It is minimalistic in structure and assembly but simultaneously rich in details you want to look at."
Neutral colours have been used throughout the apartment
Dezeen Showroom:Fiandre Architectural Surfaces has presented a selection of tiles on Dezeen Showroom, including tiles that resemble French limestone traditionally used in Burgundy and a collection informed by coveted varieties of marble.
Fiandre Architectural Surfaces' Marmi Maximum is a tile range informed by the world's finest marbles.
Fiandre Architectural Surfaces added nine new colours to the Marmi Maxi collection
The tiles are available in standard and large-format sizes and come in a range of colours including Nero Damascato, which is a dark marble with bold gold veining.
The collection's large-format tile has a thin profile, intended to be used as a countertop, sliding door and for bathroom furnishings.
Roc Ancien tiles are suitable for floor and wall coverings
The Roc Ancien tile range is designed to resemble the weathered texture and cloudy surface of Bourgogne stone, a French limestone traditionally used in buildings in Burgundy.
Roc Ancien is available in three colours, including warm-toned Roc Beige, cool-toned Roc Gris and pale-toned Roc Blanc.
Dark Marquina is a new tile in the Marble Lab collection, which features white veins against a black background
Fiandre Architectural Surfaces has extended its Marble Lab ceramic tile collection to include 12 colours, each mimicking some of the most coveted varieties of stone.
The collection includes Dark Marquina, a black marble imitation with delicate white veining, and Atlantic Grey, which softly blends shades of grey and cream.
The Musa+ tile collection has a neutral colour palette
Musa+ is a versatile collection of ceramic tiles that can be used on both floors and walls.
The collection is available in a variety of sizes and textures including slabs, strips, boards, hexagons, squares and diamonds, designed to be arranged in multiple configurations.
Musa+ comes in a range of neutral colours and in three different finishes, including glossy, semi-polished and a raised wood effect.
Fjord tiles come in a range of neutral colours informed by Scandinavian nature
Fjord is a tile collection that features tone-on-tone cloud effects informed by the wild Scandinavian landscapes.
The tiles are suitable for indoor and outdoor settings, including pools, spas, saunas and garden areas.
The brand produces tiles informed by natural stone and precious marble
Fiandre Architectural Surfaces is a porcelain tile brand based in Italy. The brand produces a wide range of floor and surface coverings that are suited to large scale architectural projects and residential homes.
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UK studio Kirkland Fraser Moor has created a contemporary house named Ashraya in Hertfordshire, England, which is topped by a cross-laminated timber arch.
Built near the village of Aldbury, the home is set within the Chiltern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. With a grass-topped, arched roof it was designed to be both contemporary and integrated into the landscape.
Ashraya stands next to a historic house and walled garden
"The primary concept was driven by a desire to integrate building and landscape seamlessly in order to ensure that the new dwelling 'emerges' from the land and context," said David Kirkland, co-founder of Kirkland Fraser Moor.
"The site is extremely visually sensitive and open countryside views are highly protected within the Chiltern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty," he told Dezeen.
The house sits under a CLT arch
The distinctive two-storey house is positioned next to a historic walled garden and house that, along with the client's desire for large amounts of light, informed the home's design.
Set within a flint-walled, circular space, the dwelling is sunk into the ground and topped with an arch made from cross-laminated timber that is lower than the neighbouring wall.
It is sunken into the ground
"The building itself is a very simple rectangular form but set within a curved courtyard landscape to provide, together with the arched roof, an organic natural flowing form," explained Kirkland.
"The flint walls of the courtyard are designed to extend the existing flint walls that are of historic interest," he continued.
"The capping stone to these walls curve around the landscape and up and over the roof in a three-dimensional calligraphy aesthetic reminiscent of great land art and the powerful landforms of prehistory."
The kitchen and dining room looks out onto the courtyard
Under the cross-laminated timber (CLT) arch, the majority of the home's rooms are placed on the ground floor.
A large kitchen and dining room is divided from a living room by the home's stairs, with two bedrooms accessed from this space.
The principal bedroom and fourth bedroom, along with an office, are located on the mezzanine floor above.
A basement level contains a snooker room, playroom, den and art studio.
Internal walls were built from chalk blocks
To reduce the carbon footprint of the house, Kirkland Fraser Moor used natural materials for much of the home's structure and internal walls.
While the basement and mezzanine are made from precast concrete, the roof is constructed from CLT and the majority of the internal walls are built from chalk blocks.
The main bedroom suite is on the first floor
"The roof is constructed from cross-laminated timber to reduce the embodied carbon footprint and to create a warm contrast to the concrete," explained Kirkland.
"Much of what looks like concrete is in fact internal partition walls constructed from raw chalk block and clay plaster polished to resemble stone," he continued.
"These walls together with the concrete provide high levels of thermal mass which greatly contribute to comfort levels throughout all seasons."
The distinctive house was built under the Paragraph 80 planning regulation
After initial issues, the rural home was given planning permission under a part of UK planning laws known as Paragraph 80, which allows for houses of "exceptional quality" to be built in countryside locations.
"Paragraph 80 provides a small doorway into developing these types of projects but the process can be highly risky and potentially very contentious as the measure is very subjective," added Kirkland.
"The project was very well supported by the local community who helped overturn the initial planning rejections."
American artist Theaster Gates has unveiled his concept for this year's Serpentine Pavilion, which will take the form of a wooden pavilion that references Stoke-on-Trent's bottle kilns.
Named Black Chapel, the wooden pavilion will be designed by Gates with support from Adjaye Associates and have an oculus in its roof to help create the feeling of a sanctuary.
A church bell, rescued from Chicago's St Laurence Church, will be placed by the pavilion's entrance and used to announce performances and activities.
According to the Serpentine Gallery, the overall design is a homage to British craft and draws on "the significance of the great kilns of Stoke-on-Trent" that were used for firing pottery.
Black Chapel will be "space of deep reflection"
Gates hopes his design will become a space where people can find rest.
"The name Black Chapel is important because it reflects the invisible parts of my artistic practice," the artist said.
"It acknowledges the role that sacred music and the sacred arts have had on my practice, and the collective quality of these emotional and communal initiatives."
Theaster Gates (above) is the designer of this year's Serpentine Pavilion (top image)
"Black Chapel also suggests that in these times there could be a space where one could rest from the pressures of the day and spend time in quietude," he added.
"I have always wanted to build spaces that consider the power of sound and music as a healing mechanism and emotive force and that allows people to enter a space of deep reflection and/or deep participation."
Structure to be built mainly from timber
Black Chapel takes its name from a project that Gates carried out in 2019, which involved overhauling the central atrium of the Haus Der Kunst museum in Munich, which was originally built for the Nazi regime.
In line with the Serpentine Gallery's sustainability policy, the pavilion will be designed to minimise its carbon footprint and environmental impact.
Mainly made from timber, it will be demountable and relocated to a permanent site after its time next to the Serpentine Gallery in London's Kensington Gardens is up.
Black Chapel, which opens to the public on 10 June, will host a series of live performances over the summer.
Last year's Serpentine Gallery's summer pavilion was designed by South African studio Counterspace. The structure was built from cork and bricks made of recycled construction waste and referenced the experiences of London's migrant communities in its design.
British architecture studio Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has completed the polychromatic and modular Aile Est airport terminal in Geneva, Switzerland, as part of a consortium called RBI-T.
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has completed the Aile Est airport terminal in Geneva
Composed of two floors, Aile Est serves six existing aircraft stands at the international airport and comprises departures, arrivals and transfer facilities, alongside border controls and passenger lounges.
It accommodates approximately 2,800 passengers per hour on departure and 3,000 on arrival.
The terminal has a modular structure
The terminal is distinguished by its narrow, elongated form, described by RSHP as an "extruded parallelogram". It measures less than 20 metres in width.
This was designed in response to tight site constraints but it also helps to maximise daylight inside, reducing demand for artificial lighting.
The elongated building comprises six gates
Aile Est has a repetitive modular structure, with its six gates built from four 20-metre-long modules. Their structure is exposed externally and internally.
Designed as a kit of parts, this structure allows the building to be easily disassembled, recycled or extended in the future. It also helped to reduce waste during construction.
"There has been a long-standing approach at RSHP to articulate clearly and truthfully the elements that make up the building," explained the studio's associate partner Douglas Paul.
"The material and structural systems differ greatly on each project, but all have a structure that is carefully detailed and expressed," Paul told Dezeen.
"This is reflected in the expression of all building components but particularly structure and services."
Each gate's ceiling and seating is finished in a unique colour
Aile Est's design was led by the studio's senior design partner Graham Stirk after RBI-T won a competition to create it in 2010.
It was commissioned to replace a technically and environmentally outdated facility at the airport that was built for temporary use in the mid-1970s.
According to associate partner Paul, a key element of the design that led it to win the competition was its layout that maximises outward views.
Passengers are welcomed by large expanses of glass that look out at pilots preparing for departure and further over to the Jura mountains.
The colours are designed to differentiate each gate
"One of the key strategies that led to the RSHP design consortium RBI-T being chosen was the decision to move the arrivals passenger flow from the basement and place it on the airfield side of the building above the departing passengers," Paul said.
"The client had anticipated that passengers on arrival would descend underground to pass along a subterranean tunnel to the baggage hall," he continued. "By contrast, arriving passengers using the Aile Est today enjoy fantastic views across the airfield to the Jura mountains to the north."
Large expanses of glass line the terminal
The large windows that frame these views are also designed to maximise daylight, improve passenger and staff wellbeing and help occupants orient themselves.
Therefore, each of the modules is engineered to minimise the quantity of internal structural elements to ensure views are unobstructed.
Occupant orientation is also helped by the colourful baffle ceilings and seating, which break up the structural repetition of the structure and distinguish one gate from another.
This also brightens the building's natural stone flooring and exposed structure, of which the primary components are painted light grey and secondary structural elements dark grey.
Internal structural elements are minimised to maximise views
"An airport can be a stressful environment, particularly if one is unsure where the departure gate is or how long it will take to get there," said Paul.
"The Aile Est endeavours to make wayfinding as simple as possible."
To prevent overheating and solar glare from the large expanses of glass, the services and stair cores are designed to self-shade the building in tandem with fixed louvres.
The windows are also triple-glazed and have colourless coatings that help to maximise daylight while reducing solar gain.
Stair cores help to self-shade the building
According to RSHP, the terminal is designed to produce more energy than it consumes using on-site renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic panels and geothermal piles. From 2024, Aile Est will also link up to GeniLac – a network that uses water from Lake Geneva to reduce the cooling loads for buildings.
There will also be facilities to support the recovery and use of rainwater throughout the building.
RSHP was founded by the late architect and high-tech architecture pioneer Richard Rogers in 1977 who passed away in December aged 88. The studio was known as Richard Rogers Partnership until 2007 but was renamed to reflect the contributions of the studio's partners Stirk and Ivan Harbour.
Elsewhere, RSHP is also currently designing an airport terminal in Shenzhen, China, which will be arranged around a large covered garden.
