Architecture and Home Design

This Kaufhaus Canal Hamburg is design by Topotek 1, located in Hamburg, Germany
Their winning Kaufhauskanal housing scheme provides 80 residential units, which introduce living into a former industrial area of Hamburg. The typology for the overall plan for the Kaufhauskanal Metrozone is designed as a series of new ‘Kaufhaus Hybrids’. The scheme accommodates the existing quarter in that all the new buildings slope downwards and outwards to meet the heights of the existing buildings. The roofs are angled and inclined to maximize views to the sky and at the same time minimize the noise from the surrounding streets, roads and railway.

Bjarke Ingels, BIG Partner-in-Charge “Our Kaufhauskanal vision proposes a neighbourhood where you can have both – both city and nature, both open and urban, both history and future, both identity and diversity, both work and play.”

The warped framework creates a layout that is varied and unique without impacting movement through its open space. The resulting urban experience fluctuates between variation and continuity.

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This BAE Systems Reception is designed by Capita Architecture, located in Lancashire, United Kingdom.
The facility, designed by Capita Symonds, is responsible for building the front fuselage and other parts of the Eurofighter Typhoon as well as a number of other aircraft including the Lockhead Martin F-35 Lightning II.

Two major new four-storey office buildings, which have achieved a minimum BREEAM rating of ‘Very Good’, (the UK sustainability standard) have also opened at the site. The buildings will accommodate flexible engineering accommodation – one will house F-35 staff while the other will house customer support for BAE’s Saudi Contracts.

The offices feature a raft of sustainable features including low energy consumption, biomass boilers, rainwater harvesting and a central atrium providing both a wealth of natural daylight and air circulation. As part of the green travel plan, showering and changing facilities have also been provided within the office buildings to encourage staff to cycle into work and help cut down the company’s carbon footprint.
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This Sumaré House is designed by Isay Weinfeild Architects, located in São Paulo, Brazil.
The plot is not a small one (700 m2), but due to construction (height) restriction laws, the building should not exceed 2 floors, and an underground floor was necessary. There, the architects placed the caretaker’s quarters and the office – as both areas open onto small but nice lawns, one does not feel like being underground at all.

On the middle floor, a few steps above street level, there are the sitting and dining rooms, the kitchen and a larger lawn. In the living room, we designed a long étagère so the owner could display her collection, ranging from works of art to design and vintage objects. On the upper floor, there are the bedrooms – hers and a guest’s – and the ‘facilities’ for physical exercising: ballet and swimming.

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This Serpentine Pavilion is designed by SANAA, located in London, United Kingdom.
Past masters of the Pavilion have included familiar names in the western architecture circuit such as Frank Gehry (2008), Zaha Hadid (2000), Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond (2006) and Toyo Ito (2002). So it was with some surprise that the news of this year’s architects was received. Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa of Japanese firm SANAA, are little known in the western world, aside from their firm’s design for the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. Having never built anything in the UK, their Pavilion premier will also act as a right of passage into the British architecture community.

Describing their structure the architects say: “The Pavilion is floating aluminium, drifting freely between the trees like smoke. The reflective canopy undulates across the site, expanding the park and sky. Its appearance changes according to the weather, allowing it to melt into the surroundings. It works as a field of activity with no walls, allowing uninterrupted view across the park and encouraging access from all sides. It is a sheltered extension of the park where people can read, relax and enjoy lovely summer days.”

As a canopy, the structure provides a variation of coverage and enclosure and appears to be consumed by the garden’s foliage, illustrating a sound understanding of both the good old British weather and a desire to be at one with the surroundings by the designers.

It’s not summer in the UK until the Serpentine Pavilion has been erected and, that said, summer should start in two days! Standing in the gardens of London’s Serpentine Gallery, the Serpentine Pavilion is each year designed by a different innovator from the top of the architectural food chain.

This House in the Pampas is designed by Manuela Garcia Faure Architecture, located in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The asymmetry of it’s 25 windows frames thousands of views of the Argentine pampas. Multiple vistas arouse curiosity, contemplation and motion, like paintings coming alive or screens capturing the changes of light and time; the harvesting of the crops, the deepness of the horizon and the ancient ombu tree. Space experimentation is vital for the concept of this L shaped house, its different volumes with changing ceiling heights create different atmospheres.

Sustainability was also important to his project implemented by the use of local materials, natural illumination, cross ventilation which allows natural breeze to flow. The design was developed in Chicago by Manuela Garcia Faure Architecture with technical documentation, contract administration and site inspection by Architect Lorenzo in Buenos Aires.