Sarugaku / Akihisa Hirata

Architects: Akihisa Hirata
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Program: Shopping
Design Year: 2006-2007
Construction Year: 2007
Site Area: 538 sqm
Constructed Area: 851.5 sqm
Photographer: Akihisa Hirata

White Nights

In Lucerne, Switzerland, a window overlooks the existing roof terrace of a loft apartment, renovated by architect Gus Wüstemann. Photography: Gus Wüstemann.A stairway of lacquered particleboard blocks with recessed fluorescents connects the terrace to the living area below. The kitchen is concealed in custom Corian-topped cabinetry. The cooktop is within the foreground counter; the oven and storage are in the rectangular cabinet behind. Polyurethane covers the floor of the open-plan living area; photography: Gus Wüstemann. The top half of the OSB wall slides open to expose the bathroom. When the bathroom wall is slid open, it partially closes off the entry to the bedroom; photography: Gus Wüstemann. The corner of the OSB wall adjacent to the cooktop counter swings aside to reveal the stainless-steel sink. A cotton curtain separates the bathroom from the bedroom. Photography: Gus Wüstemann. A fiberglass desk, Verner Panton chair, and Sebastian Wrong Spun Light lamp furnish the living area beyond the kitchen. Cotton drapes cover an up-lit plaster wall. The master suite’s glass-enclosed shower. The sleeping area, tucked behind a block of custom closets, is set on a shallow platform edged with strip fluorescent lighting. Wüstemann carved out a curtained recess in the lounge. The rug and pillows are sheepskin, the tables oak. PROJECT TEAM: PINAR GNL. CORIAN (KITCHEN): DUPONT. LAMP (LIVING AREA): FLOS. CHAIR: VITRA. DESK: SWISS FIBER. CURTAINS: PURE LIVING. BENCHES (SHOWER, LOUNGE): ETHNICRAFT. CUSHIONS (LOUNGE): ARTIANA. FITTINGS (SHOWER): HANSGROHE. MILLWORK: LUTERNAUER INNENAUSBAU. PAINT: SCHLAGENHAUF. FLOOR: WALO.

The way Swiss architect Gus Wüstemann sees it, most apartments forfeit valuable square footage when kitchens, stairways, entrance halls, and other utilitarian areas are restricted to their specified functions. “Why waste 40 percent of your space on activities you do only once a day?” asks the principal of his namesake firm. So it’s no surprise that his plans for a loft conversion in the attic of a historic house in Lucerne, Switzerland, involved integrating many normally discrete functional elements into a seamless whole. Wüstemann’s penchant for multipurpose spaces fit perfectly with the project’s biggest design challenge: how to take advantage of its idiosyncratic layout. The glory of the property was a 200-square-foot rooftop terrace with spectacular Alpine and downtown vistas. However, the living quarters on the floor below had tiny windows, no views, and received most of their natural light through a single, small skylight. Inspired by the glaciers in the mountains that ring Lucerne, Wüstemann connected the terrace to the apartment with a staircase of cascading white-lacquered particleboard blocks wide enough to lounge on. This abstract river of ice reflects light into the open-plan loft below and draws the eye up to the terrace. Most important, the space that would have been lost to a conventional staircase has been turned into a sculptural centerpiece on which to climb, sit, or even sleep. “It isn’t a staircase,” says Wüstemann. “It’s a landscape.” The base of the glacierlike structure is flanked by two equally abstract white forms that house the kitchen facilities. On one side is a Corian-topped rectangular block containing storage cabinets and the oven. On the other, a Corian lid slides open to reveal a cooktop while providing additional counter space. A corner of the wall adjacent to the stove swings aside to expose the sink. Closed up, the kitchen almost vanishes. The living area lies beyond, and the lounge is opposite. Separated by nothing more than a white cotton curtain, the master suite occupies a single volume next to the kitchen. A massive honey-colored OSB wall hides the bathroom from the rest of the 2,150-square-foot loft while the sleeping area is tucked behind a white block of floor-to-ceiling closets. A gap between the OSB wall and the closets allows access to the suite; the top half of the bathroom wall can be slid across this entrance, providing privacy in the sleeping area while exposing the bath to the loft’s public areas. Luckily, the lack of internal doors doesn’t translate into a lack of solitude. The curtains and sliding partitions offer adequate seclusion according to Kai Semmler, who shares the residence with his partner, Diana Hora Siccama. “There are a lot of areas to retreat to,” he says. “We never get on each other’s nerves.” Wüstemann further intensified the apartment’s snowy ambience by finishing the floors in a lustrous white polyurethane that resembles a frozen mountain lake. The ‘ surface, shiny as an iPod’s shell, reflects not only the daylight streaming down the staircase but also the indirect lighting installed throughout the loft. Recessed fluorescent strips, for example, illuminate the bottoms of the custom kitchen cabinets and the bedroom’s closet wall. “Lights in the middle of a room close off the space,” explains Wüstemann, since they throw the periphery into undifferentiated darkness. By installing lighting at its edges, however, “a room starts to live from the outside in.” The architect uses an even more theatrical strategy to animate a long plaster wall that runs down one side of the living area. The gray expanse, up-lit by strip lighting, is concealed behind full-length white cotton curtains. The soft luminescence creates the illusion that the apartment extends well beyond the wall. For some walls, the architect specified OSB or plaster, coated with nothing more than clear varnish. These surfaces offer a rugged contrast to the smooth white finishes that dominate the apartment and prevent it from appearing too ethereal or icy. “A painted wall is just a painted wall,” says Wüstemann. “Raw materials have depth, character”—not to mention economic advantages that helped him complete the project in two months on a $150,000 budget. It’s difficult to believe that before the renovation, the loft stood unoccupied for two years because it was too gloomy. “Now, it seems lighter when it’s dark outside,” says Semmler. “It glows, as if you’re in a

ARX

ARX, hailing from Lisbon, is giving us some Portuguese love with their dozen Siza-esque white houses and paper conceptual models. There is a powerful consistency to the work that we admire. Yet we are particularly drawn to how the paper conceptual models directly inform the work, and take it beyond where our beloved Alvaro Siza will go. Not just with the literal translation to white plaster, but when the materials get layered like they do for the O’Porto Blood Bank building (pictured), or for the sensitive (yet modern) addition to the Ílhavo Library.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Keep Loving Plans

In this crazy online architectural wonderland, pictures rule all, be it renderings or photos of the built work. Less common is the underused (but still useful) tool of plans and sections, as well as the relative newcomer, the animated diagram. It’s a way of understanding projects that can add (or detract) from the genius of a design. Sometimes interesting photographs of a house reveal, in plan, to be a lame 3 bedroom 3.5 bath house. Sometimes the plans and sections support brilliant awesomeness in the pictures. I am tempted to complain about how the general level of skill at drawing has dropped precipitously since schools started going all-digital, but I think that is a topic for another post. Besides, I think the pendulum is swinging back to drawing, since renderings of clouds with text labels on them are not cutting it as cutting edge anymore.

It should come as no surprise then that my favorite weblogs are those that include plans and sections with every project selection. Daily Dose deserves special mention for devoting posts soley to plans and diagrams.

Herzog & DeMeuron’s Tate Modern Mountain

While we were intrigued with Tate Modern 2.1, revealed way back in 2006, the stacked box pyramid we think has since found better expression and program and site in their proposal for the Parisian mega-pyramid of residences, mostly because the Paris project is much larger, and so the box thing turns into a pyramid from far away. It looked too jumbled to be Tate 2.1.

We are much more excited with Tate Modern 2.2, a smoother pyramid that works better with the existing power station and neighborhood, without losing its crazy awesome loudness. Check out their site geometry image at the bottom of this page for how it was generated. It also keeps with today’s boulder theme.

House Within A House

I know sub-studio posted about this a few days ago, but I think it bears repeating. I have loved the Wohlfahrt-Laymann Residence by Meixner Schluter Wendt since we wrote about their spaceship Star Wars thing way back in April. In this very unique house addition, what looks like an existing ski chalet from central casting is completely enclosed in a new box, creating some great interior spaces with what used to be the exterior of the house. The sophisticated cut outs in the new box relate well to the interior layout, and some new sculptural additions to the existing house are also added, also on the interior of the new box. Got that? Check out their great diagrams and plans if you need to get up to speed.

Villa 1 / Powerhouse Company

Architects: Powerhouse Company
Location: Netherlands
Partner in Charge: Nanne de Ru
Project Team: Nanne de Ru, Charles Bessard, Alexander Sverdlov, Nolly Vos, Wouter Hermanns, Anne Luetkenhues, Bjørn Andreassen, Joe Matthiessen
Project Team: Nanne de Ru, Charles Bessard, Anne Luetkenhues
Project year: 2005 – 2008
Structural Engineer: BREED ID, Gilbert van der Lee
Contractor: Valleibouw BV Veenendaal
Lighting: LS2 and BEDA electro
Photographs: Powerhouse Company

Final Wooden House / Sou Fujimoto 23

Architects: Sou Fujimoto Architects
Location: Kumamoto, Japan
Project Team: Hiroshi Kato
Structural Consultant: Jun Sato Structural Engineers
Lighting: Hirohito Totsune
Contractor: Tanakagumi Construction
Design Year: 2005-2006
Construction Year: 2007-2008
Site Area: 89,3 sqm
Constructed Area: 15,13 sqm
Photographer: Iwan Baan

Stair Porn

Stair Porn. The title (and design) of this blog says it all: it’s about stairs of every kind, leaning toward the awesomely designed. The categories of stairs on the sidebar are going to turn this into a great architectural reference. It’s run by the same people who do the brilliant Materialicious. Pictured is a stair by Gio Ponti with the comment “All we need now is for Sophia Loren to walk down those stairs.”

Libeskind Does Shopping Malls

Daniel Libeskind designed a shopping mall over in Switzerland.:

“Architects for a long time thought malls were below their dignity,” Libeskind says. “But if you bring nature and culture into the building, you can make it a radically different place.”

He’s absolutely correct. Architects did some amazing shopping malls in the 1960s and 1970s, and then they kind of let go of those projects. The only problem is that what Libeskind designed actually looks like any ole mall in New Jersey.