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From Recardo Bofill’s Lahead Fábrica to Heatherwick Studio’s Zeitz MOCAA, adaptive reuse has harnessed to produce some of the world’s most powerful architectural spaces, creating new narratives for formerly derelict and forgotten spaces. Greek architecture practice k-studio has utilized this method to form the Dexamenes Seaside Hotel, transforming an abandoned wine factory that dates back to the 1920s.

Following the collapse of Greece’s currant trade in the early 20th Century, wineries and distilleries were created throughout the country in order to convert unsold stock of currants into wine. Dexamenes was built along the sea in order to easily load ships with wine before setting sail to other overseas markets. Since this period, the industrial structures that came to characterize the region were left relatively untouched.

K-studio sought to not only preserve the strong history and raw beauty of the existing buildings but to emphasize them in a revitalized design. In order to achieve this the studio defined a complimentary palette of concrete, steel, timber and engineered glass. These materials ensured that new construction elements did not overwhelm the existing structures, allowing them to retain their presence.

The balance between old and new at Dexamenes Seaside Hotel is displayed immediately as entrants are greeted by the first of two elegant pavilions, attached to the original concrete tank buildings. The structure is characterized by two large, concrete blocks, each divided lengthwise into two rows of ten storage tanks. The tanks measure approximately 5 by 6 meters, making them perfectly sized to be hotel rooms. 

Additionally, features such as the manholes and pipes in the façade of each tank and the patina of the internal wall surfaces have been preserved. The rooms open towards the sea, with the entire internal layout oriented to make the most of their immediate connection to the beach.

The space between the 2 rows of tank rooms was transformed from an industrial scrap yard into a serene courtyard garden. It consists of a shallow pool along with two preserved and accessible steel drums that sit atop the water.

Aside from providing elegant lodging, the Dexamenes Seaside Hotel also hosts an array of artistic events, such as exhibitions, workshops and lectures. This coupled with its physical revitalization allows this space to maintain a strong dialogue with the area and its history. 

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All images via k-studio

The post This Abandoned Wine Factory Was Transformed Into a Stylish Seaside Hotel appeared first on Journal.

In recent days, the team at Architizer has been rocked in a way that we know many of you will have been as well. The senseless murder of George Floyd and many others has sparked enormous grief and justifiable anger across the country, forcing us to reckon with our actions (and inaction) as individuals, as a company and as a society.

While the issue of police brutality might seem removed from the realm of architecture and design, let us be clear — racial injustice, discrimination and inequality touches every part of our lives, and industries such as ours are not immune. In fact, architecture often frames these fundamental issues, and can be viewed as a physical manifestation of a society’s social, political and economic values.

Therefore, as a global platform for architects and designers of all races, genders, religions and geographies, we have a duty to highlight our position. We condemn racism in all its forms and seek to act in support of all Black people — especially the Black architects, engineers, contractors, photographers, manufacturers and students who help make our industry the innovative, inspiring space that it is.

We pledge to work hard to ensure their concerns are raised, their voices are heard and their hard work is recognized. While the national spotlight has been thrown on racial injustice this week, we recognize that a sustained and ongoing effort is required to help produce real, authentic change, both in the AEC industry and beyond.

We do not have all the answers, but we are striving to find them. We will be working on more in-depth content related to the work of Black designers, as well as promoting workplace equality and calling out discrimination in all its forms. Please watch for these upcoming articles, but in the meantime, we invite you to read and support the work of the following organizations:

• National Organization of Minority Architects: noma.net
• National Urban League: nul.org
  
• The Directory of African American Architects blackarch.uc.edu
• National Organization of Minority Architecture Students (a division of NOMA) https://www.facebook.com/nomasnational/
• Black in Design: http://www.blackindesign.org/
• Organization of Black Designers: http://www.obd.org/
• National Society of Black Engineers: https://www.nsbe.org/home.aspx
• ACSA: https://www.acsa-arch.org/resources/faculty-resources/diversity-resources/

If you have an additional organization you would like to see added to this list of resources, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at editorial@architizer.com.

The post Architizer Statement on Racial Injustice appeared first on Journal.

Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

British design practice Grimshaw Architects and Dutch manufacturing specialists Concrete Valley have developed a concept for a modular home that could be built in places most susceptible to the impacts of climate change. 

Called Modular Water Dwellings, the concept lays out a design for floating houses that would mitigate the risk of living in flood-prone areas, especially as sea levels rise due to global warming. It is also meant to address increasing urbanization, which has led to shortages of affordable housing in urban areas. 

According to Grimshaw Architects, “Grimshaw and Concrete Valley’s Modular Water Dwellings have been conceived as a potential solution to this problem, offering affordable housing, free of the constraints of land-based construction and resilient to the mounting threat from rising sea-levels.”

The concept combines Grimshaw’s skill in experimentation and design innovation with Concrete Valley’s expertise in manufacturing high-quality and durable materials. Their assembly-line, modular approach would allow for mass-market affordability, a greater attention to detail and an efficient use of resources. Complete off-site construction would reduce waste, allow for materials to be easily recycled and reduce the environmental impact.

The Modular Water Dwellings would respond to varying site contexts, local conditions, light sources and primary views. According to the designers, they would also maximize the use of durable and non-corroding materials, such as concrete and glass, in order to ensure a long design life. 

Concrete pontoons, which are floating structures filled with air, would support a walled lower deck, columns and an upper level living area. The Water Dwellings would use minimal energy, with well-insulated and shaded spaces. They would also rely on energy generated through solar roof panels and heat exchangers built into base boxes below the waterline. 

Furthermore, the designers noted that this concept would encourage active lifestyles for its users due to the dwellings’ proximity to water. In turn, this would improve their wellbeing. With the concept developed, Grimshaw Architects and Concrete Valley are working on prototypes. 

Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

All images via Grimshaw Architects

The post Grimshaw Designs Floating Affordable Housing to Combat Sea Level Rise appeared first on Journal.

The winners of Architizer’s First Annual One Photo Challenge have been announced, concluding an incredible competition that celebrated one of the pillars of architecture, photography. The top winner in the Student category was “Philadelphia Wasteland” by Chris Hytha of Drexel University. This submission was awarded a grand prize of $2,500, along with professional photography gear from the likes of Peak Design, Formatt Hitech and Lenovo.

“Philadelphia Wasteland” offers a glimpse into the altered role Philadelphia’s industrial built environment plays today. While the remnants of the city’s industrial past remain, their uses are entirely different. They have new meanings and roles. In the words of Chris Hytha: “They’ve become canvases for urban artwork and escapes from the noise and activity of the city center far from the regulations and restrictions of bureaucracy.” 

Chris captured this moment, highlighting just how fluid architecture and its functions can be. We caught up with him to learn more about his inspiration, process and feelings behind this One Photo Challenge-winning photograph.

Nathaniel Bahadursingh: Congratulations on winning the inaugural One Photo Challenge! What sparked your interest in entering the competition and what does winning mean to you?

Chris Hytha: I distinctly remember the day I entered the competition. When I got into work in the morning, I saw the one photo challenge prompt in my email, and was immediately interested. Because I have been taking photos around Philadelphia for years, I knew I could find an image that fit the contest, and I was excited to critically think on this intriguing prompt about our relationship to architecture.

I was thrilled to have made it to the 100 finalists, and after I saw the other submissions, I did not expect to win. There were so many incredible stories and photographs. As a student in architecture school, I often get overwhelmed by this massive world of architecture, and everything I still need to learn. Winning this competition gives me the confidence of knowing that I am on the right track, and makes me extremely thankful for how architecture school at Drexel University has changed the way I think and see the world.

What drew you to your subject matter that ultimately culminated in the winning photo?

I have always had the propensity to explore. As soon as I discovered these massive forgotten facilities in North Philadelphia, I couldn’t help but venture into these dangerous neighborhoods to discover the unknown. As we wondered through the massive empty floors of the building, we crossed paths with different groups of people.

Some filming music videos, some vandalizing, and some photographing like us. It is this weird lawless feeling inside a place like this, but I was fascinated in how this building’s use has changed in its abandoned state, as well as the evidence of these activities in the form of graffiti and broken windows.

What significance does this image have to you personally and your experience as a photographer?

This image represents one of the most free and exciting times of my life. I was still early in my education at Drexel, and only a year into my growing passion for photography. At school, I found like minded friends who wanted to explore, and see what our new home in Philadelphia had to offer.

This pursuit led us to neighborhoods and places that most people never experience, as well as a fascination with abandoned structures that have taken on new uses for their inhabitants. It was always a goal of ours when exploring a place, to find a way to the tallest point, as depicted in this photograph. In this way, the built environment was a big puzzle to solve and explore, and the feeling of reaching the summit of an urban mountain is a feeling I live for.

What do you find to be the greatest challenges in photographing architecture in a compelling way?

To me, the challenge in photographing architecture in a compelling way is to discover your own voice. We see so many images every day, and it is easy to regurgitate what you have seen others do, rather than following your personal vision and passion.

How big a role did post-production play in conveying the story of your photograph, and how do you approach that process?

Post production had a very little impact on this photo. The key to any image to me is lighting and composition. This photo was shot at sunrise, giving the whole landscape a soft ethereal glow. After climbing to the tallest point, I saw another elevated platform on the other side of the building, and I knew there was an opportunity for a photo.

I told my friend Ryan to stay put, and I ventured across a crumbling rooftop, and climbed a rusty ladder to get this view. It was just as I imagined, a sunrise silhouetted subject with the backdrop of industrial north Philadelphia.

What one tip would you give to someone looking to win next year’s One Photo Challenge?

My main tip for participants in the challenge next year is to be unconventional. I don’t think this challenge is about getting slick photos of the trendiest projects; rather, it should be about telling a unique story. For me, that story was how forgotten, decaying architecture can actually be more rich and interesting than a new structure that was meticulously designed.

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As one of our two top winners, Chris Hytha will receive:

• $2,500 prize money
• Carbon Fiber Travel Tripod
• Long Exposure Filter Kit
• 20′ x 30′ MetalPrint
• 8″ Smart Display
• Publication in the inaugural “One Photo” eBook
• An exclusive interview discussing their photograph, published in Architizer Journal

You can see more of Chris Hytha’s photography here. Thank you to all participants for sharing these amazing photographs and telling such fascinating stories about architecture. If you are interested in entering next year’s One Photo Challenge, be sure to sign up for updates by clicking the blue button below.

Register for the 2021 One Photo Challenge

The post One Photo Captures the Fading Beauty of Philadelphia’s Industrial Architecture appeared first on Journal.

Being an architect in times of economic disruption is disorienting. Many projects may be suspended, while others may actually ramp up. With no easy way to determine when or how circumstances will change, one of the most effective ways for new firms to stay solvent through a crisis is by increasing efficiency in their day-to-day operations. Even as businesses begin to reopen after lockdown, uncertainty remains at an all-time high.

Time-consuming tasks such as billing, time tracking and business analysis become infinitely more important during tumultuous periods, which makes this a good time to start using business management tools made specifically for architecture firms. Cloud-based platforms, like BQE’s Core, are especially suitable for architecture firms operating remotely, which has quickly become a necessity throughout the industry.

To help aid businesses in the coming months, we’ve identified some of the best time-saving strategies architects can employ to keep their firms going, allowing more time to focus on active projects or sharpen their competitive edge in the search for new work.

1. Maximize Project Efficiency

Managing an architectural project comes with unique challenges, especially when you’re trying to maximize every penny in a stringent economy. Intelligent project management tools let you check a project’s schedule against actual progress, or costs against a budget. If you’re truly savvy, employing a cloud-based system means all project data is live, reflecting changes as they’re made while allowing easy remote access.

2. Make Connectivity Easy

Perhaps one of the most disruptive aspects of the current crisis occurred when businesses were forced to mobilize their entire staff to work from home in a matter of days. In cases like this, where desktop connectivity may suddenly become limited or impossible, cloud-based mobile apps can pick up the slack by providing detailed access to databases of project management, time tracking and business analysis.

3. Speed Up Project Billing

In a slow economy, billing clients as quickly as possible is critical to a firm’s survival but can only happen as fast as your staff records the time they spend on a particular project. Using cloud-based time and expense tracking, with auto-fill features carrying over from week to week and always-on remote access, can be a boon to both employees and managers.

4. Make It Easy to Get Paid

Income is essential for staying afloat in a downturn, so the last thing you want your clients to face is a difficult process for paying your invoices. Use a billing system that’s intuitive and easy to understand, and make sure it includes online payment processing, allowing your clients to pay you with one click. Better still, BQE Core is specifically designed for architectural projects, so you can bill against time, deliverables or project milestones.

5. Automate Your Cash Flow

Streamline essential accounting functions by drawing information from every aspect of your firm’s work. An integrated business management platform can automatically generate staple accounting metrics such as cash balance, profit and loss, and can be linked directly to your firm’s bank accounts, allowing deposit tracking and check writing to be handled with a single, central interface.

6. Keep an Eye on the Big Picture

With today’s ever-evolving conditions, it is vital to utilize digital dashboards to get a simple but detailed overview of your firm’s key performance metrics. The best dashboards are easily modifiable, allowing you to edit or add new ones as the information relevant to your situation changes. Drawing real-time data from numerous inputs, intelligent dashboards let you make informed business decisions quickly, and if they’re cloud-based, you can use them from anywhere.

7. Keep Your Staff Informed

In times like these, transparency breeds trust. It’s important to ensure employees have an accurate understanding of firm performance. Customizable reporting of business data allows you to generate different sets of metrics for different employees, and can even empower them to generate reports of their own and deliver them to the appropriate recipients thereby boosting your firm’s collaborative brainpower.

8. Mine Your Own Data

Practical applications of artificial intelligence are gaining a foothold in business administration, and are now capable of delivering insights you might not see at first glance. This technology can also take the form of a voice-driven interface — part virtual assistant, part business coach, able to answer questions about your business and make useful recommendations as it learns the workings of your firm over time.

9. Focus on Your Employees

Even in today’s era of lockdowns and closed offices, human resource management involves a lot of work. There is the endless administration of personal information, legal compliance, and PTO and salary tracking, to name just a few. Using a powerful, cloud-based HR tool can automate many of those clerical functions, allowing HR staff more time to focus on what they do best — being a reliable resource for your employees during a crisis.

10. Create New Efficiencies

Adding new digital tools to your firm’s workflow often means adding a layer of complexity to existing systems, but you can avoid this roadblock if you use tools designed to be integrated with a variety of project management, accounting and information storage programs already popular with architects. Integrating your business management platform with programs like ArchiSnapper, Quickbooks and Dropbox removes the need to duplicate data entry, breaking down silos and creating new, streamlined workflows between existing systems.

In times like these, it’s important to stay focused on what’s critical for your firm. With business unusually erratic across the AEC industry, it’s important to work as efficiently as possible not just to get through these difficult times, but also to set your firm up for success when good times inevitably return.

Hero image: GAD PARK 19 by GAD ARCHITECTURE, Istanbul, Turkey

The post Architecture Startups: 10 Ways to Work Smarter in the Post-COVID-19 Economy appeared first on Journal.

The 2020 One Photo Challenge brought together an incredible assemblage of intriguing photographs that told beautiful stories about architecture. The top winner in the Non-Student Category was “Women Gather” by Bruce Engel of BE_Design. This submission was awarded a grand prize of $2,500, along with professional photography gear from the likes of Peak Design, Formatt Hitech and Lenovo.

“Women Gather” captures a moment within a space designed by Sharon Davis Design. Called the Women’s Opportunity Center, it is located in Kayonza, Rwanda and was built for the NGO Women for Women International. The project seeks to empower the local community, create economic opportunity and rebuild social infrastructure. It was especially built to serve the women of the community by providing training in women’s rights, literacy, health and valuable vocational skills. The architecture responds to this aim through its human-scaled, intimate spaces. With “Women Gather”, Bruce Engel masterfully captured exactly what Women’s Opportunity Center set to achieve, a “…feminine space where women can gather.”

We caught up with Bruce to learn more about his inspiration, process and feelings behind this One Photo Challenge-winning photograph. 

Nathaniel Bahadursingh: Congratulations on winning the inaugural One Photo Challenge! What sparked your interest in entering the competition and what does winning mean to you?

Bruce Engel: Thank you Architzer for putting on this competition filled with so many great entries!  And thank you for this award. I’m an architect by trade and photography has always been a passion. As an architect, the photograph is most often used as a tool for documentation, and often the only means by which most people will experience a building, so for me architecture and photography always went hand in hand.

I was really drawn to the premise of this competition: the challenge of One Photo. How architecture is intertwined with humanity and its magical, intimate, and everyday moments. I think this came through so clearly in each and every one of the 100 final photos. 

What drew you to your subject matter that ultimately culminated in the winning photo?

Knowing I always wanted to be an architect, my grandmother gave me an Alvar Aalto quote. It reads: “It is the task of the architect to give life a gentler structure.”  I try to live and practice these words as best I can. Architecture shapes our world and has the power to help people and empower communities.

When the opportunity was given to me to work with Sharon Davis Design on a “Women’s Opportunity Center” for the NGO Women for Women International, that supports women survivors of war and genocide, I was drawn in and dedicated myself to the project, the cause, and Rwanda, that I called home for 6 years.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

It was wonderful to visit the #worldarchitecturefestival winning #architizerawards #architizer awarded #womensopportunitycenter It was the pleasure and honor of a lifetime to work with @sharondavisdesign @womenforwomencardiff on this project. From developing the design and drawings with a talented and good hearted team, to training the women that made the 1/2 million bricks, to the experience of living on site and watching just about every one of those bricks get laid, to now see how well the buildings are doing and how the campus is flourishing. I hope that this place continues to provide a safe, healthy, prosperous, and inspiring space for the women and community of #kayonza #rwanda # rwandaarchitecture #sharondavisdesign #brickarchitecture #be_design #bruceengeldesign #afritecture #africaarchitectureawards #africaarchitecture

A post shared by Bruce Engel (@be_design.space) on Feb 9, 2020 at 9:33am PST

What significance does this image have to you personally and your experience as a photographer?

Every architect dreams of being a fly on the wall, to see their space being used. Climbing the wall and shooting from above I was able to capture this serene moment of women gathering. To me, this captures the aspiration and hope for this place. This project will stay with me forever. I hope the Center continues to provide a safe, healthy, and inspiring space for the women and community.

What do you find to be the greatest challenges in photographing architecture in a compelling way?

There are a lot of standards and rules for how architecture is shot these days, and it’s hard not to get sucked into using the formula. I would always tell my architecture students: you are telling a story [with your drawings and documentation]! I try to remind myself of that: not every project needs to be photographed in the same way. What is the story the architecture is telling?  What’s the human element? How might it deserve its own unique voice in expressing itself?

 

View this post on Instagram

 

One of my favorite construction shots taken when climbing high on the trusses of a classroom structure of the #womensopportunitycenter in #kayonza #rwanda #onephotochallenge #architizer #architizerawards #rwandaarchitecture #brickarchitecture #sharondavisdesign #africaarchitecture #be_design #bruceengeldesign

A post shared by Bruce Engel (@be_design.space) on May 18, 2020 at 6:58pm PDT

How big a role did post-production play in conveying the story of your photograph, and how do you approach that process?

I always remember my photography teacher saying: “you can’t get a good picture out of  a bad negative.”  So I usually shoot with the intention that how I frame and expose an image is as close to final as I can get. Very little was done in post production on this shot. I did a little color balancing, but that was it.

What one tip would you give to someone looking to win next year’s One Photo Challenge?

What photograph of yours first comes to mind?  I would probably go with that one.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

As one of our two top winners, Chris Hytha will receive:

• $2,500 prize money
• Carbon Fiber Travel Tripod
• Long Exposure Filter Kit
• 20′ x 30′ MetalPrint
• 8″ Smart Display
• Publication in the inaugural “One Photo” eBook
• An exclusive interview discussing their photograph, published in Architizer Journal

You can see more of Bruce Engel’s work here. Thank you to all participants for sharing these amazing photographs and telling such fascinating stories about architecture. If you are interested in entering next year’s One Photo Challenge, be sure to sign up for updates by clicking the blue button below.

Register for the 2021 One Photo Challenge

The post One Photo Reveals How Architecture Can Foster Intimate, Empowering Experiences appeared first on Journal.

Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

Christo, the Bulgarian artist renowned for his large-scale, fantastical environmental installations, which often included wrapping landmarks and landscapes in fabric, has passed away due to natural causes at the age of 84. 

Spanning a career lasting over six decades, Christo collaborated with his wife and artistic partner, Jeanne-Claude, planning and executing projects across the world. Taking years and sometimes decades to complete, their work was monumental, wondrous, and at times illegal. 

Christo and Jeanne-Claude at the site of their Wrapped Reichstag project; image via Christo and Jeanne-Claude

In June 1962, for one of their first projects together, the pair blocked a narrow street in Paris with a wall of 89 oil barrels in protest against the recently built Berlin Wall. Algerian War of Independence protest demonstrations were also taking place in Paris at the time.

Called The Iron Curtain, the blockade temporarily obstructed most of the traffic of the Paris Left Bank. The pair was refused permission to create the installation and continued regardless, until the police demanded they remove it. 

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Wall of Oil Barrels – The Iron Curtain, Rue Visconti, Paris, 1961–62; photo: Jean-Dominique Lajoux © 1962 Christo

While it’s clear that Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s oil barrel wall was a political statement, the duo claimed that their projects contained no deeper meaning aside from their aesthetic impact.

They were open to interpretation, serving the greater purpose of adding beauty and new ways of seeing the familiar across both urban and rural landscapes. This freedom lent itself to the myriad of captivating and playful projects that temporarily transfigured buildings, bridges, landmarks, sea coasts, city parks and geologic formations. 

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida, 1980-83; photo: Wolfgang Volz © 1983 Christo

Some of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s most notable works include the Valley Curtain, The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Wrapped Reichstag, Running Fence and The Gates. With Surrounded Islands in 1983, a total of 603,870 square miles of pink fabric were used to surround a series of islands in Miami’s Biscayne Bay.

And, following Jeanne-Claude’s passing in 2009, Christo realized a project the couple had first envisioned in 1970. Called The Floating Piers, a vibrant floating walkway of yellow fabric was suspended on floating docks that stretched for almost two miles across a lake in Italy. 

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Floating Piers, Lake Iseo, Italy, 2014–16; photo: Wolfgang Volz © 2016 Christo

Experiencing the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude came at no cost. Their installations were widely accessible and funded entirely by the sale of their own artwork. They crafted public displays that could be both admired from afar and closely interacted with. For brief moments of time, Christo and Jeanne-Claude altered the way we can interact with the world’s most ingrained and timeless features. They bridged worlds, bringing art to an architectural and urban scale. 

Though the visionary couple is no longer with us, their work will continue. Christo’s latest project, L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, will see Paris’ Arc de Triomphe cloaked with 25,000 square meters of recyclable polypropylene fabric in silvery blue and 7,000 meters of red rope. It is on track to be completed by September of next year.

Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

The post Defiance and Delight: How Christo’s Art Sparked Joy on an Architectural Scale appeared first on Journal.

Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

Kengo Kuma’s architecture is defined by pattern and craft. Establishing his own practice, Kengo Kuma & Associates in 1990, the firm has since has designed architectural works in over twenty countries. Working together with his team, Kuma aims to design architecture which naturally merges with its cultural and environmental surroundings as gentle, human scaled buildings.

Kuma is constantly in search of new materials to replace concrete and steel, investigating new approaches for architecture in a post-industrial society. This can be readily seen in the firm’s section drawings, where ideas of spatial experience and craft come together. Mastering repetition, layering and pattern, the architecture is an exploration into new ways of building and working together with craftsmen. The following projects showcase some of the firm’s section drawings to tell a story of how renowned architecture shapes daily life.

Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center, Asakusa, Taito, Japan

Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center opened in April 2012, as a contemporary building of timber and glass. The center is a striking structure taking the appearance of a stack of separate wooden buildings that have been piled up on top of each other at different angles. Inside, the facilities include an information counter, an exhibition space, a café, and an observation deck. The section drawings reveal how seemingly regular floors are given form and identity.

V&A Dundee, Dundee, United Kingdom

The design of V&A Dundee is intended to act as a connector between the river and the city, creating a frame through which the river can be seen from the city and vice versa. The building acts as a gate through which the city can once again access the world, in a way which reflects on Dundee’s successful history of trade. The building’s form creates dramatic spaces with an impressive main hall forming a public indoor plaza, and areas that overhang the external public plaza.

China Academy of Art’s Folk Art Museum, Hangzhou, China

The folk art museum stands in the campus of China Academy of Arts in Hangzhou. The site was formerly a tea field that formed a hillside. The team’s point was to design a museum from which the ground below can be felt, by continuing the building’s floors that follow the ups and downs of the slope. Planning is based on geometric division in the units of parallelogram to deal with the intricate topography.

CONNECT ONE, Chuncheon-si, South Korea

The team’s aim in CONNECT ONE was to create an open and liberated space for learning and communications by integrating the building and the hills around it. The entire space spreads by forming terraces, which are connected with diagonal rooms for communication named “community voids”, which facilitate lively discussions among people who could take seats in the grand stairs and enjoy panoramic view of the nature.

Yusuhara Marche, Takaoka District, Japan

Yusuhara Machino-eki is a complex of a market selling local products and a small hotel with 15 rooms. Combining the two different functions via atrium, a new core facility was born for the town of 3,900 in the mountains. As an attempt to respect this history, the team used thatch as the material, which is deeply related to “Cha Do,” which worked as a medium to connect the past with the present.

Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum, Takaoka, Japan

This is a plan to link two public buildings with a bridge-typed facility, which had been long separated by the road in between. The museum technically bridges communications in this area. It functions not only as a passage between the two facilities but also as an accommodation and workshop, ideal location for artist-in-residence programs.

Daiwa Ubiquitous Computing Research Building, Tokyo, Japan

This research building was constructed for the university’s new field on ubiquitous computing. The team’s aim was to break away from conventional images of campuses that consist of hard materials such as concrete, metal or stone, and to instead design a soft building made with wood and earth. At the center of the building comes an organ-like aperture covered with soft membrane. The opening generates a gentle and organic flow of light and wind in the campus, which is otherwise dominated by the strict grid arrangement.

Odunpazari Modern Museum, Eskişehir, Turkey

Odunpazari Modern Art Museum is to exhibit the owner’s collection of Turkish modern art. The Museum is planned in the city of Eskisehir where the owner was born and raised. The project is to realize the owner’s ambition to promote Turkish art and to make cultural contribution to the city of Eskisehir. The stacked and interlocked boxes are designed in various sizes to create diverse scales of exhibition space inside. Boxes at the ground level offers opportunities for large scale art works and installation.

Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

The post Architectural Drawings: 14 Sections Revealing Kengo Kuma’s Craft-Based Designs appeared first on Journal.

Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

Landmark architecture often begins with a strong, singular concept. This is especially true in Qatar, where a rise in modern buildings is defining a national image rooted in symbolism.

As one of the country’s latest monumental works, Ateliers Jean Nouvel’s National Museum of Qatar set out to address the contradictions and contrasts between Qatar’s past and present. Harnessing one of the region’s most distinctive natural features, the design was inspired by a flower-like aggregate of mineral crystals known as a desert rose.

As Nouvel explains, the museum emerges from a desert that has ventured all the way to the sea. On the site, the Royal Palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani rises up, a twentieth-century landmark of major heritage value to Qatar.

As the new museum is dedicated to the history of Qatar, it was made to evoke the desert’s eternal dimension and fluidity. Taking the desert rose as a starting point, the team designed a building 350 meters long with a series of large, inward-curving disks. These iconic disks define the museum’s formal approach and spatial experience throughout.

The skin of the building is made of a high-performance glass fiber-reinforced concrete that possesses the same sand color inside and outside the building.

This GFRC layer was segmented into a series of panels along the building disks, each ranging from 46 to 285 feet in diameter. Internationally renowned consulting firm Arup provided most of the engineering disciplines, including the primary steel structural system. Their task was nothing short of epic — the museum comprises some 539 disks of 30 different sizes.

National Museum of Qatar Structural Drawings; courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel

Stuttgart-based Werner Sobek worked on the design and engineering of the secondary structure that connects with the external cladding: 76,000 Fibrex panels made from 3,000 master molds. Stainless-steel embeds cast into the panels connect them to the substructure.

The orientation of the disks add to the building’s energy efficiency. When the sun hits the building from the east or west, the disks cast long protective shadows that help to keep the interior spaces cool.

National Museum of Qatar; photograph by Iwan Baan

National Museum of Qatar; photograph by Iwan Baan

The large openings around the structure offer glimpses of the Howsh, the museum’s gardens and Doha Bay. The permanent exhibitions, focusing on the environmental, cultural and political history of Qatar, are on display in 11 galleries.

Formally, some disks are ‘horizontal’, their edges resting on other disks at different angles. The ‘vertical’ disks constitute the building’s support and transfer the loads of the horizontal planes to the base.  Like the exterior, the interior is a landscape of intersecting disks.

National Museum of Qatar interior spaces; photographs by Iwan Baan

The disks slice through one another, resulting in a construction made of complex geometric spaces. Inside, you find spaces that don’t exist anywhere else in the world, creating a unique experience for viewing art and traversing between exhibition halls.

A number of floors are on an incline, with ramps bridging the gap between interior spaces. For circulation around these forms, an interior circuit forms a loop, creating a sequential journey for visitors that ends in the discovery of the old Royal Palace.

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The post Architectural Details: Jean Nouvel’s National Museum of Qatar appeared first on Journal.

California-based spatial design collective SPACE INDUSTRIES has collaborated with performance-based art practice ELL to compile an extensive list of anti-racist, pro-diversity resources for communities within architecture, design and construction. The continually updated list includes a range of events, articles, firms, pro bono services and social media channels that promote the cause and provide a platform for Black-owned businesses to have their voices heard and their talents showcased.

Curated by Brenda Zhang, Kevin Bernard Moultrie Daye, Celeste Martore and F. Jason Campbell, the list is designed to help the AEC community take a pro-active stance in seeking racial justice and equity throughout the industry.

Follow the below link to access the document, and reach out to Brenda at bz@spaceindustri.es if you would like additional resources added to the list:

View Anti-Racism Design Resources

Each of the list’s co-creators have their own perspectives on why such resources are necessary and beneficial to the profession moving forward. “The values of any society are inscribed into space,” remarks SPACE INDUSTRIES cofounder Kevin Daye. “The buildings, parks, streets and monuments that we choose to erect both materialize the ethics of the past and set the stage for the present. Shouldn’t we constantly question if they are still relevant for The Now?”

Oakland-based environmental designer Celester Martore points towards holes in education on Black history as one of the prevailing issues to resolve, in the realm of architecture and beyond. “As a student, were you ever taught about quilombos? Wasn’t it part of your history curriculum? Required reading? Not enough time? Can’t get to it this semester?”

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@ncarb develops and administrates programs for architecture licensure in the US. In order to become a licensed architect in the US you must first pay and meet all core requirements (3,740 hours of “experience”, 6 exams, and a professional arch degree) set by NCARB. Currently black architects make up only 2% of all licensed architects. NCARB’s Board lacks diversity in race and gender. #archsowhite

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Meanwhile, inter-disciplinary designer F. Jason Campbell emphasized the need for the industry — including its media — to highlight the work and amplify the voices of Black designers: “We are so far removed from the actions that facilitate our existence, and often so from tactics used to control the built environment. Building requires power. Exposure to buildings requires power. Shaping the lens, by which we decide what is considered successful, requires power. As we look for opportunities to act, acknowledge the need to uncover and amplify Black voices. We have been shaping space for a very long time.”

Finally, SPACE INDUSTRIES cofounder Brenda Zhang has a call to action for the profession: “I’m calling in non-Black people of color and white people in these disciplines to ask ourselves, what are we committing to change about ourselves, our schools, our practices TODAY and EVERY DAY in solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives toward racial justice and Black liberation? What resources, access, comforts, conveniences will we willingly give up because they represent privileges we never earned, that are not passive or innocent, but that actively suppress Black creators, cultural production, and communities?”

We encourage everyone in the Architizer community to explore these resources, follow these social media channels, and share this document with their colleagues and friends throughout the profession.

View Anti-Racism Design Resources

Black creatives; a grid compiled by architect Sean Canty on Instagram

Curators’ Biographies

SPACE INDUSTRIES is a spatial design collective based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. Recently, they were participating artists in Gray Area Foundation’s 2019—2020 Experiential Space Research Lab, producing the exhibition, THE END OF YOU, and they have been published in Ground Up, Failed Architecture, KooZ/Arch, and Room One Thousand (forthcoming).

ELL is a performance-based art practice conceived by F. Jason Campbell in early 2016. The work produced leverages the fervor of a talented cast of artists and designers, all interested in working across media and discipline, rooted in architectural discourse.

Kevin Bernard Moultrie Daye (KBMD) makes music, designs, curates, fabricates, and organizes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Oakland, California. He holds a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of California, Los Angeles. Recently, he co-curated the exhibition, Forever, A Moment: Black Meditations on Space and Time, for SOMArts in San Francisco, and is one of two 2021 Emerging Curators at LACE. He is a founding member of SPACE INDUSTRIES.

Celeste Martore is an environmental designer based in Oakland, California (Ohlone land). She often tells herself that our most powerful tool (outside of empathy) is our ability as storytellers. Literary in conception, Celeste’s practice reimagines how space interacts with the Black body. Her work weaves architectural strategies into performance, focusing on atmosphere (through object symbolism, form and color) as a vehicle to uplift the narratives of Black communities in the Bay Area. Her work has spanned multiple industries including theater, film, dance, technology, installation art and experiential design. Celeste is a Master of Architecture candidate at Harvard Graduate School of Design and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sustainable Environmental Design from the University of California, Berkeley. She also played Division-1 soccer for UC Berkeley as a center midfielder.

F. Jason Campbell is an inter-disciplinary designer, leveraging the fields of architecture, photography, and exhibition design. His work addresses the spatial properties and actions required to claim, make, and keep space; and the incompatibility of space that was not built with us in mind. In tandem, he is the founder of ELL, a performance-based art practice, and a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, teaching core and advanced option studios. Jason holds a Master of Architecture from UC Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning.

Brenda Zhang (Bz) is an architectural designer and a visual artist currently based on Tongva land (Los Angeles, USA). Their practice is primarily concerned with physical and cultural construction as entangled processes and the ongoing practice of translation as a deep inquiry into how power and narrative shape one another. As a queer femme Chinese-diasporic artist, they construct new narratives through intentional misreading, misalignment, hiding in plain sight, and an extreme attachment to certain objects. They hold a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Visual Arts from Brown University. Bz is a founding member of SPACE INDUSTRIES.

View Anti-Racism Design Resources

Hero image via GoodFon

The post 100+ Anti-Racist Resources for Architects and Designers appeared first on Journal.

Have you got  awesome architectural drawings to share? If so, we want to hear from you: Register for the One Drawing Challenge for a chance to win $2,500!

While physically imposing and visually oppressive, Brutalist architecture offers some of the most utilitarian spaces. The style emerged in the 1950s, becoming popular in the 1960s as it was commonly used for government buildings, universities, high-rise housing and parks. Brutalism became the go-to architectural style for social housing solutions, which became especially popular in European communist countries. 

Reviled for its unwelcoming aesthetic and increased association with crime and urban decay, many Brutalist structures have been demolished. However, in recent years, the style has gained a newfound popularity, with certain buildings becoming designated architectural landmarks. To coincide with its resurgence, we’ve put together a collection of beautiful hand-drawn architectural sketches that reveal the essence of Brutalist architecture.

Earl W. Brydges Building by Paul Rudolph, 1969-74; image via Pinterest

Earl W. Brydges Building by Paul Rudolph, 1969-74

Paul Rudolph was one of the United States’ leading architects of the Modernist era. He served as the Chair of Yale University’s School of Architecture for six years and designed the famous Yale Art and Architecture Building, one of the earliest examples of Brutalist architecture in America. Known for his use of concrete and highly complex floor plans, Paul Rudolph’s drawing of his Earl W. Brydges Library in Niagara Falls, New York reflects his unique style.

Orange County Government Center, 1967; image via Pinterest

Orange County Government Center by Paul Rudolph, 1967

A drawing of the Orange County Government Center is the second piece by Paul Rudolph to make this list. It fully embodies the architect’s brutalist style. The drawing reveals the structure’s internal spatial complexity, abundance of concrete and its undulating, cubic façade.

The Barbican by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, 1982; image via Pinterest

The Barbican by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, 1982

The Barbican Centre is a highly celebrated example of Brutalism and is one of the most dynamic cultural hubs in London. Designed by architectural practice Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, this cross-section offers insight into the intricacies and scale of this iconic structure.

Perspective rendering of the Met Breuer, 1963; image from the Met Breuer Papers, Syracuse University Library via NYC Urbanism

The Met Breuer by Marcel Breuer, 1966

The Met Breuer was designed by architect Marcel Breuer, opening in 1966. Known for his Brutalist architecture style, Breuer wrapped the museum in concrete and granite. Resembling an upside-down ziggurat, the bunker-like structure has very few windows and relies heavily on artificial lighting. This hand-drawn perspective rendering highlights the museum’s daunting and unique presence amongst its surroundings.

Boston City Hall, Perspective Looking North, Second Floor North Hall, by Gerhard M. Kallmann; image via Boston Magazine

Boston City Hall by Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles, 1968

Referred to as the “World’s Ugliest Building”, Boston City Hall is a massive Brutalist civic structure that is hard to miss. It was constructed in 1968 by architectural design firm Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles. This interior section perspective reveals the grand public space of the building’s north entry hall and its structural system.

Habitat 67 by Moshe Safdie, 1967; image via Dezeen

Habitat 67 by Moshe Safdie, 1967

Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 is an experimental modular housing complex that was presented at the 1967 World Expo in Montreal. Designed as a vision for the future of cities, the project comprises 354 stacked concrete boxes that collectively take the form of a rolling hill. Described as an attempt at a high-rise village, Habitat 67 integrates the benefits of suburban living, including gardens, fresh air, privacy and multi-level environments. This sketch of Habitat 67 highlights its organic shape, modular makeup and unpredictable façade.

Drawing via MCM Daily

Casa Sperimentale by Guiseppe Perugini, Uga de Plaisant and Raynaldo Perugini, 1968-75

Designed by Guiseppe Perugini, Uga de Plaisant and Raynaldo Perugini, Casa Sperimentale was constructed between 1968 and 1975 as an experimental concrete villa. Located in the Italian town of Fregene, near Rome, the building has a Brutalist style formed of geometric shapes, including spherical rooms. It’s entirely modular and is elevated amongst the trees. While it’s now abandoned and in a state of decay, we can still admire this unique treehouse-like residence through this detailed sketch.

Louis Weil Amphitheater by Olivier-Clément Cacoub, 1965; image via Picuki

Louis Weil Amphitheater by Olivier-Clément Cacoub, 1965

This is a perspective sketch of French architect Olivier-Clément Cacoub’s Louis Weil Amphitheater located in Grenoble, France. Constructed in 1965, the structure has a monolithic form with large slabs extending from its sides.

Stone Flower by Bogdan Bogdanović, 1966; image via Spomenik Database

Stone Flower by Bogdan Bogdanović, 1966

Bogdan Bogdanović was an architect, teacher, writer and urbanist who is known for designing dozens of monuments and memorials across the former Yugslavia commemorating victims and resistance fighters of World War II. One memorial, in particular, which gained international attention after its unveiling in 1966, is Stone Flower. These are a number of the original concept sketches made during the process of designing the structure.

Architecture Sketches: Brutalism by Eric He; image via Eric He

Architecture Sketches: Brutalism by Eric He

Drawn by concept artist, Eric He, this drawing is part of his “Architecture Sketches: Brutalism” series. The scale of the setting is wide, full with large, imposing structures at various elevations. Both futuristic and aged, Eric He’s sketch offers a vivid Brutalist landscape.

Now it’s your turn: Register for the One Drawing Challenge and submit your best architectural drawing for a chance to win $2,500!

Register for the One Drawing Challenge

The post 10 Drawings Capturing the Dramatic Beauty of Brutalist Architecture appeared first on Journal.

Paula Benson is Founder and Editor of Film and Furniture, a curated resource of iconic furniture seen in classic movies and TV shows that includes links to purchase the featured products.

Whether an arthouse classic or a mainstream blockbuster, film sets are laden with hidden narrative. Film set designers, production designers and set decorators spend months, sometimes years creating houses, scenes and rooms. Carefully chosen locations, furniture, decor, lighting and art all convey nuances about the protagonists personalities – subtleties which dialogue cannot always communicate.

We at Film and Furniture are fascinated by these details and we’ve made it our business to seek out others who feel the same. That’s how we came across the Instagram feed of Floor Plan Croissant – the clever artist who analyses the floor plans and decoration of intriguing film set interiors and renders them in lyrical watercolour paint.

It is Architect and Illustrator Boryana Ilieva who creates these “poetic surveys of space, light and matter in cinematic architecture” under the name Floor Plan Croissant. From Will Byers house in Stranger Things and Elio’s Italian summer villa from Call Me By Your Name, to the octagonal house in Mother! and the London house in Phantom Thread, we were intrigued to find out more. Boryana shares with us the motive and method behind this movie obsession including some behind-the-scenes work in progress.

Stranger Things (Will Byers’ House) film set floor plan and set decoration painted by Floor Plan Croissant. Available to buy as an art print (from $48) from Society6.

Film and Furniture: We have to ask, where did the name Floor Plan Croissant come from?

Floor Plan Croissant: I found out recently that croissant in Latin is a particular stage of the moon. But no, that’s not why I named the project so. The reason has to do with cooking—the morphology of tasty stuff growing in the oven.

Please tell us a little about your background – we are guessing you work in architecture or design?

In 2008 I co-founded an architectural studio in Sofia, Bulgaria, under the name of 11AM together with architect Panayot Savov. We develop small design projects, mostly condo interiors and single family houses. Panayot is a tutor in public buildings at The University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy (UACEG) in Sofia and he brings a solid theoretical backup to every film house explored in Floor Plan Croissant.

The house in Mother! Floor plan painted by Floor Plan Croissant. Available to buy as an art print (from $48) from Society6.

The workings and sketches of the Mother! floor plan (see above) in progress

When and why did you start painting floor plans of famous film sets from movies and TV?

I can’t live without cinema. I watch tons of films all the time but in 2015 the situation became unbearable. Any person can consume film their whole life without stress, unless that is, the person is a creative! When this is the case, films can start to become a burden at some point and that’s what happened to me. I needed to take the load out of me, to throw back. Being an architect, I have turned this emotion into the language of architecture.

What was the first film you painted?

Elena by Andrey Zvyagintsev. Amour by Michael Hanneke immediately followed.

The ground and first floor of the London house in Phantom Thread. Film set floor plan and set decoration details painted by Floor Plan Croissant. Art prints available (from $49) from Society6.

Your painting approach is full of character and sensitivity adding a real individuality to the works. Is there any reason you choose to paint these as loose but careful watercolors rather than say, graphic vector representations?

Watercolor – with its unpredictable flow – fascinates me. The “mini flood” created by this medium (never knowing what direction it might take) always surprises me. Also, when watercolor dries, it slowly forms round hairy splashes. I love how they add to the floorings, walls and furniture of the film house.

But who knows, one day I might jump to pencils, clay, or why not Lego? The hidden grid of the floor plan is what I am hunting, the medium I choose to represent it is second place.

Do you create these cinematic floor plans by watching the films and TV programs and methodically analyzing how the rooms all come together? Do you speak to the film set designer and production designers to ask for their designs or guidance?

Yes – by watching the films over and over for several days to fit pieces of a puzzle together. These days are absolutely my favorite part of the process: The silence of the blank paper, seconds before I play the film and start scratching with the pencil the living room for example. Then I head to another room, and another room and my thoughts run like that: Ahaa, these two rooms connect through that door!…Oh, this is the painting on the wall I saw in a while ago through the small corridor!… Little by little the secret boxes begin to fit and form a logical home seen from above.

Of course sometimes the boxes don’t fit and this is because production designers use their ‘magic’. I contacted Alexandra Schaller, production designer of Maggie’s Plan to ask how the children’s room fits Maggie’s blue apartment and that’s exactly what she said to me: “Magic!”. And she blinked.

I love to chat with the production designers, I always write to them if I am in trouble with figuring out the floor plan. So far all of them who I’ve contacted have been really kind, supportive and excited about the Floor Plan Croissant project.

La La Land (Mia’s apartment) floor plan painting by Floor Plan Croissant. Available to buy as an art print (from $48) from Society6.

The detail of the set decoration in your work is amazing – even the cushions sitting in Mia’s room in La La Land – are you as interested in the detail as the overview?

Thank you! I am interested in detail when I feel it matters for the film. In La La Land it is all about detail. Objects are constantly surrounding Mia and are telling a story themselves. In the beginning of the film her clothes, her home — the furniture and decoration in it — all shines in bright colors: yellow, red, green, blue.

Little by little, passing through the seasons, Mia moves into the grayish apartment of Sebastian, her sweaters pale, in the end of the story we find her in a calm stylish jazzy black and white. It would have been a crime not to pay attention to detail while painting Mia’s apartment.

Another example with important detail in the protagonist’s home is K’s apartment in Blade Runner 2049. I noticed that the room and most of the furniture have their edges or vertexes geometrically trimmed—table, shelves, kitchen cabinets, bed—thus each of them forming a single capsule, just like K isolated himself from his fellow replicants.

Sometimes though, there are film houses where details are transparent to me. The overview is what attracts my attention. For example The Armitages House in film Get Out by Jordan Peele. I immediately zoned the floor plan in my head: Formal area and informal area. In the informal area they cooked meals (the kitchen) and cooked people’s brains (the office).

Film set floor plan of Personal Shopper painted by Floor Plan Croissant. Find prints for sale here.

A third example, my favorite, is an empty house – naked, only walls and holes for doors and windows – a victory of the pure architectural grid over the impermanent decoration. The example I am referring to is the ghost house in Personal Shopper by Olivier Assayas.

I also had doubts about how to illustrate the house in David Patrick Lowery’s A Ghost Story because it had the empty stage as I have described. It attracted me so much, but in the end I decided to paint the house with objects and detail because the furnished house is where the characters of Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara lived together – and their love was all that the film was about, wasn’t it?

Film set floor plan of Clouds of Sils Maria painted by Floor Plan Croissant. Find prints for sale here.

Did you have a dolls house as a child?

I wish I did. But no. Maybe that is the big Freudian truth behind the reason I started this project.

What’s your favorite film and why?

That is a difficult question to answer. I love films which tell stories about duality, doppelgängers, parallel selves, twins and mirrors. I love when directors leave it to my imagination to finish a story. I love to discover hidden gorgeous houses in films – houses which nobody else has noticed. And all of the above are summoned in Deadpool. Kidding! It’s Clouds of Sils Maria by Olivier Assayas.

You can follow Floor Plan Croissant’s wonderful work on Instagram, buy her art prints of floor plans including Mother, Phantom Thread, La La Land and many others in her store at Society6 or follow her process on Patreon.

This article was originally published on Film and Furniture.

The post Architect Boryana Ilieva Creates Mesmerizing Floor Plans From Iconic Film Sets appeared first on Journal.

Architectural hardware and software have long been critical to the design and delivery of construction projects, with technological advances opening the door to increasingly complex building forms. But with COVID–19 impacting the industry like never before, HP and Architizer want to hear from you: How is technology helping you create amazing architecture and keep your practice afloat in 2020?

Take our survey by clicking the link below. One lucky participant will win an HP Reverb Virtual Reality Headset, worth $600!

Take me to the Survey

This 20-question survey will take you about 8 minutes to complete, and your contribution will help us offer a unique insight into the state of technology in architecture today. The results will form a fascinating study into the architectural profession’s evolving approach to BIM, CAD, visualization, virtual reality, generative design and more.

HP Reverb VR Headset; image via Scan2CAD

Win: HP Reverb Virtual Reality Headset

The HP Reverb VR Headset promises to transform your expectations of VR. The G1 model boasts double the resolution of HP’s previous model, with a staggering 2160 x 2160 resolution per eye and 114° field of view providing an ultra-immersive experience. Furthermore, integrated spatial audio and dual smart assistant supported mics combine to form a multi-sensory environment for the wearer. These features make it the ideal choice for architects and designers to step inside their projects, as well as offering a powerful VR experience for clients.

Take me to the Survey

Hero image: MVRDV House by MVRDV, Rotterdam, Netherlands

The post Complete Our Architecture +Tech Survey for a Chance to Win a $600 VR Headset! appeared first on Journal.

Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

The way an architectural structure is detailed can fundamentally impact how we experience a space. From temperature and humidity to air flow and light, details are tied to human comfort. While it may seem like a daunting task, learning to draw accurate architectural details will help you create more contextual, sustainable and human designs.

When you’re faced with drawing a detail, you’ve likely arrived at this task after a series of programming and design development decisions. These are great steps that usually help inform the choices you make. For example, if you’re orienting the building to capture views but block direct interior heat gain, you might need to detail glazing with a generous overhang above. Other details will entail careful consideration of wall types and the way each material is fastened together.

The following pointers outline a few ideas to consider as you learn to draw more accurate details.

Roof detail from Grace Farms by SANAA; drawing courtesy the architects

Grace Farms by SANAA; photograph © Iwan Baan

1. Study Existing Precedents

Not sure where to begin? Look to what’s already built. From extruded brick patterns to glazed facades, there is a good chance your detail has been built before, or something similar exists. If you work in an office that has a portfolio of built work, look at previous projects and learn from existing details.

Remember to consider local climate and site conditions, as details are often specific to local building knowledge, materials and traditions. Remember that studying precedents can also help you to look at a detail drawing in an entirely new way; you could look at glazed façades and get ideas on how to better arrange brick patterns. It’s a matter of curiosity and perspective.

Façade detail of De Rotterdam by OMA; drawing via AEC Cafe

De Rotterdam by OMA; image courtesy the architects

2. Research How Materials Connect to One Another

As you look at existing precedents, don’t forget to consider the actual materials themselves that you are working with. Brick, wood, stone, metal- they are all assembled in specific ways to protect health and safety, as well as mitigate environmental conditions. If you research how different materials connect, you’ll have a better understanding how to draw those connections.

Sometimes architects use simple mockups, but you can also consult with manufacturers, builders and engineers. Ask for help when something doesn’t make sense, and try to visualize the connection that’s being made. This step is important, as some materials will not connect easily to one another, and it may be dangerous or costly to do so.

Façade detail from University of Arizona Cancer Center by ZGF Architects

University of Arizona Cancer Center by ZGF Architects

3. Learn different wall, ceiling and floor build ups

In detailing, you will often work on connections between three primary elements: the walls, ceilings and floors. Each of these elements have a series of configurations, including more common assemblies and materials that will be built up together. From more innovative building envelopes to structurally insulated panels, as you learn these different types, you’ll become more confident with what to draw.

Reference building codes and fire ratings, as well as more sustainable build ups and issues like noise transfer. Materials will respond differently; you can look to wall section drawings to begin understanding the construction sequence and structural implications. It’s also useful to reference specifications and how they shape the building process.

Design detail from JTI Headquarters by SOM

JTI Headquarters by SOM

4. Master line weights

As drawings are prepared for construction, line weights are paramount. It’s important to understand how architectural details are read, and whether you’re working on a BIM model or putting drawings together by hand, there are a range of drawing techniques to consider.

Heavier line weights usually denote what is being cut or the perimeter of something, while lighter line weights can imply something beyond, above or below. Line weights can define, outline, highlight and capture attention. A diversity of line styles and weights allows you to distinguish depth and emphasize different parts of a drawing. A drawing can quickly read as flat when only a single type of line is used.

Design development drawings for Elbphilharmonie by Herzog & de Meuron

Elbphilharmonie by Herzog & de Meuron

5. Red line your own drawings

Try to learn from your work, including your mistakes. Redlines are drawings that have been printed, reviewed and marked up with errors, changes and revisions. Realize that your drawings will never be perfect, and when you’re the only set of eyes reviewing a detail, you may missing important elements.

Before asking for others to review the details you’ve drawn, attempt to red line your own drawings first — you’ll be surprised how much you can learn this way. Keep looking for ways to make your work more clear, readable, and informative.

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The post Young Architect Guide: 5 Tips for Drawing Accurate Architectural Details appeared first on Journal.

Ronen Bekerman is an industry leader in Architectural Visualization who hosts in-depth tutorials on his specialist blog. Architizer is pleased to present a selection of these guides written by some of the world’s best rendering artists.

Keeping on the trail we took in the previous installment of this series, “A Photographic Approach to Architectural Visualization“, we will check how these effects can be transported into the world of real-time, more specifically with Unreal Engine as the champion of game engines making their way into the realm of ArchViz. To present this case, let’s take a trip down memory lane starting at the point that sparked it all for me and for the ArchViz community at large as well.

Here, Lasse Rode of Berlin-based studio xoio takes Unreal Engine for a good spin as he strives for photorealism using a real-time tool. He does this with his great-looking, and mostly white, Berlin Flat scene as seen on the forums. Follow along as Lasse explains getting started with Unreal Engine 4. Enjoy it!

Introduction

My name is Lasse Rode, and I am part of studio xoio. We are a small agency specializing in visualization and illustration works for architecture and product marketing. Usually we work in a kind of “traditional” 3D environment utilizing applications such as 3ds Max and the like. We are constantly checking out new rendering engines and currently making big use of Corona Renderer, V-Ray and Octane. Each engine has its strengths, and we always try to use it like that: each for the best purpose.

Lasse Rode’s modeling techniques enable realistic renderings to be created in a relatively short amount of time; images via Corona Renderer.

Back in August 2014, I stumbled upon some drop dead gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 architectural visualization tests by Frenchman Koola, which immediately reminded me “The Third & The Seventh” by Alex Roman, only this time it was done in REAL-time.

In my eyes there have been several main trends within our industry: The strive for (photo)realism and becoming faster — if not real time. Not having to wait for your rendering to come out of your render farm was always a dream for us — especially when rendering animations!

For a long time, the main downside of the “real-time-thing” was the lack of quality you could achieve compared with pre-rendered still images or animations. So even though it looked very interesting, the application of it in a visualization context seemed hard to imagine. And honestly, the “gamey” look of it made it hard to sell for high-demanding clients from the architecture and brand fields.

This has changed rapidly. The results possible with real-time engines today are very beautiful and convincing!

Why Unreal Engine?

The release of UE4 gained a lot of attention within our industry, and the possibilities seemed to be endless. The PBR (Physically Based Rendering) material system and the easy-to-use importing pipeline for getting your models into the Unreal Engine were the most compelling reasons for us to give it a try — in addition to the quality of output possible! If you have seen the work of Koola (also available as a download in the Unreal Engine Marketplace), which went viral some weeks ago, you are probably as convinced as we are that Unreal Engine 4 is capable of impressive quality.

In the following article, I want to give you an outline of the workflow I used to make the Berlin Flat scene you can download from the Marketplace and share some techniques and tricks I came across during the process. Some of them I found myself, while others are derived from information I found on the web. The Unreal Engine Forums and Documentation are a vast and great resource, as are the starter content that comes with the engine and the assets and scenes you can get from the Marketplace.

The Berlin Flat

I made a series of images of this flat in a historic building in Berlin at the beginning of 2013 using 3ds Max with the Corona Renderer. It’s a flexible way of handling the color-mapping, which really helped to pull off the very whitish mood of the whole set. This actually was also the reason for choosing it when giving UE4 a try.

I noticed UE4 being very successfully used on scenes with gloomy lighting and busy textures. I suspected it to be not that easy to get precise shadows and GI within an ultra-white interior.
And honestly: It is a tricky task!

Above is one of the original renders done with 3ds Max and Corona Renderer. To have a look at the entire set, click here. Below is the UE4 video made with this scene …

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The Original Scene

The entire model was done in 3ds Max in a rush, so I actually detailed only the parts that are visible in the final images. Of course, this is an approach that is not possible in a real-time environment. Repurposing the scene for use with Unreal Engine, I had to reduce the scope a bit because furnishing and detailing the complete space would have taken too much time for testing purposes. I decided to export only two rooms: the ones you see on the lower part of the screenshot below.

Exporting the Geometry for Unreal Engine

This is a very easy task IF you keep some things in mind!

It makes sense to split things up a bit. Because the lightmass is calculated with a separate map for every object, it is good to be a bit careful with high values especially on big plain objects like walls and ceiling. Because of this, I only exported the inner faces of the walls that we actually see.

I also added a bit to the top and bottom of the walls to intersect them later with the ceilings. I found this to be a good way to prevent “light leaks” — lighting artifacts that happen when geometry is not closed or not intersecting. This is no problem when having a gloomy scene with lots of busy textures, but because we are going to have an ultra-white space, it is important to get as precise GI as possible, especially in the corners.

The second crucial thing is to create unwrapped UV coordinated for the channel the GI is going to be stored in by Unreal Engine’s lightmass calculation. In 3ds Max, this would be UV-channel 2.

Channel 1 is for use by all the other textures like diffuse, roughness, normal, etc. Unreal Engine counts the channels starting from 0, which can cause some confusion in the beginning — but once you get it, it is fairly simple.

Note: Unwrapping is only important for the light-map channel! For the texture channel, any kind of mapping can work, such as cubic or cylindrical mapping. In most cases, a simple “flatten mapping” in 3ds Max unwrap does the job to create sufficient UV-coordinates!

If you want to put your scene together in UE4 like it has been in your Max-scene, it is good to leave the entire “space” in place when exporting because the object’s coordinates are easier to align. For single objects like chairs and other assets, it is very comfortable to export it only once and install them in your Unreal Engine scene. For this purpose, it is good to move them near the center of your 3ds Max scene because the new object’s pivot in Unreal Engine will be there.

I used high-poly geometry without any LOD (Level of Detail) simplification. This is only recommended in small scenes like this one, but because I’m after a smooth experience and don’t want to have any jagged edges on my furniture, this was logical for me. I have no doubt there’s room for optimization, though!

Make sure your assets are merged into one object and have different material-IDs applied to handle the different materials later in UE4. Then, save your geometry as an FBX file and off you go over to the Unreal Engine editor!

Importing Into Unreal Engine 4

Importing FBX files into Unreal Engine 4 works pretty smooth! I did it in several steps.

I prepared different files that made sense:

• The geometry of the room in a separate FBX file
• Different file for the assets, each with some objects in them

Just make sure to uncheck the “Combine Meshes” to receive your objects separately and not baked into a single mesh!

Materials

I’m a very straightforward guy and a big fan of simple setups! It’s a philosophical thing, but achieving things with the least effort possible is far superior to using a setup only you understand or you can’t remember when opening a scene half a year later.

So this example of a shader is very simple, consisting of a diffuse map, desaturated and blended with black color. The same map is then color corrected and inverted to put into the roughness channel of the material. Done.

A normal map would have been too much here, but feel free to explore the materials for yourself in the scene!

Here you see the wood material applied to the chairs and the table — a dark dyed wood with a crisp matte reflection revealing the wood structure and texture.

In this image you see two more materials that might be of interest: firstly the curtain, which is backlit by sunlight and is a two-sided material:

You have to set the Shading Model to “Subsurface” and add a constant node with a value smaller than 1 and wire it to the Opacity property of your material to get this effect.

Secondly, the jar in the foreground has a very simple glass material:

It has a fairly dark diffuse color, zero roughness and a high specular value. I also involved a Fresnel-node with a value of 1.5 to control the opacity and refraction. There are a lot more complex ways to generate more realistic glass — but I honestly had some trouble to really get control over that, so this easy glass seems to be good enough.

Note that I checked “Two Sided” and set Translucency Lighting Mode to “TLM Surface” in the Details tab on the left.

One other material I want to show here as well is the floor because this one is the only one to have a normal map applied:

Here you see a material defined by a diffuse color, a roughness texture and a normal map. The diffuse color is a simple very light gray, defined by a 4-value constant.

Roughness looks a bit more complex: On the left, you see the same map three times scaled differently with a TexCoord node. The red channel of each is then multiplied with the others and then wired as an alpha into a Linear interpolation node (Lerp) to blend to values; 0.3 and 0.2 in this example to get a subtle noisy reflection on the floor planks. This is then fine tuned with a “Power” node to get just the right amount of roughness that looks OK.

The normal map again is influenced by a TexCoord and is then flattened a fair amount via a “FlattenNormal” node to get a subtle relief on the material.

Preparing the Assets

Before dropping the assets into your scene, it is always best to apply the materials onto them within the geometry editor. You only have to do it once and can still apply different materials in the main scene if needed. This is a fast process: Here you see it is important to apply different Material-IDs to your objects to put the different materials where they belong!

Building the Scene

This is kind of brief, but: Put the thing together. First you have to drag in the room geometry. The best way is to select all the parts needed and drag and drop them into the empty scene. Afterwards all the furniture and assets have to be placed in the environment.

Here you don’t see the back faces of the outer walls. As I’ve explained above: They are only single-sided for better lightmass calculation.

For this exact purpose it is also good to set the lightmap resolution for your larger objects to a high value, for the walls I set it at 2048, for example.

As mentioned above, light leaks can be an issue. To prevent these, I put black boxes around the whole scene. It looks kind of messy from the outside — though more clean on the inside!

Lighting and Lightmass

The lighting is also a fairly simple setup: I used the “Koola method” — a combination of a sun and planes with spotlights in front of the window to simulate a skylight. It is rather effective and easy to control!

To calculate the global illumination, only a few tweaks are important:

I drastically increased the lighting bounces and the indirect lighting quality. I also decreased the smoothness to 0.6. Details are pronounced better and the shadows don’t wash away so much.

Further to this, I set the direct lighting to a dynamic shadow, which is important to have the light moving later in the animation!

The last step before hitting “Build” is to set the Lighting Quality to “Production”!

This should result in smooth lighting everywhere.

Actually when getting to this point the first time, I was kind of thrilled! This is actually the strongest part of this engine: to thrill you. Being able to move inside my “rendering” in real time was really a delightful moment!

Post Processing

One of the greatest features is the possibility to apply color correction and camera effects just within the editor. This can be done with a Post Process Volume for global settings. I did some tweaks on the saturation, fringing and vignette, the bloom, disabled the auto exposure by setting the min. and max. values to 1 and increased the overall brightness by setting the Exposure Bias to 1.42. I also added a lens flare, which I find really awesome happening in real time!

Setting up the Animation

The ability to move freely inside the scene makes doing animation a very easy and pleasing task because of the instant-feedback nature of the real-time environment. As a frequent user of compositing software, it took not much time for me to adapt to the integrated Matinee tool and set up an animation.

First thing to do is setting up a Matinee Actor.

When opening Matinee, you will see a window with a track section and a curve editor.

Setting up the cameras and animation work is very self-explanatory. Motion is controlled by key frames and curves just like any other animation software. Also the “cutting” work is done just within the Matinee editor.

I created a couple cameras moving slowly through the space: Seeing exactly what you are doing really helps to tweak the timing of cuts and speed of camera movement!

You can see the camera trajectories just in the editor and control the editing on the fly! After getting the rough “cut” done in Matinee, I then exported the complete animation as an AVI and fine-tuned it in Premiere and aligned it to the music.

Conclusion

The entire process starting at exporting from 3ds Max and importing into Unreal Engine 4, working out the shading and lighting to produce the animation and then posting on YouTube took me about one day. This speed is unheard of in ArchViz and reflects very much the key potential that lies in the use of Unreal Engine 4 for visualization works.

Some screenshot details from the animation

The absence of render times in terms of “producing” images really makes the process of creation very flexible and free. The fast feedback of your action is the real revolution!

We are constantly thinking and testing the possibilities of applying this kind of production and workflow into our daily work and our environment as a whole.

There are a lot of possible applications, and we are very eager to explore them!

I hope I gave some insight into my motivation and process and wish a lot of fun with the Berlin flat scene.

Kind regards,

Lasse.

This article was first published on Ronen Bekerman Architectural Visualization Blog in December 2014 and refers to software available at that time. Enjoy this article? Check out the other features in our series on “The Art of Rendering”:

Methanoia Reveals the Story Behind Architecture’s Most Striking Visualizations

When Architectural Visualization Gets It Right: Victor Enrich’s Surreal Art

7 Magical Demonstrations of Hyper-Real Environments

Alex Hogrefe Creates Stunning Architectural Visualizations Using SketchUp and Photoshop

How Technology Will Revolutionize Architectural Representations

The post How to Create Photorealistic Architectural Renderings Using Unreal Engine 4 appeared first on Journal.

Have you got awesome architectural drawings to share? If so, we want to hear from you: Register for the One Drawing Challenge for a chance to win $2,500!

Demi Lang is a UK-based artist who specializes in creating incredibly detailed architectural drawings. Her work finely depicts both local and international architecture, magnifying some of the world’s most timeless places. With over 15 years of experience, the self-taught artist works in a variety of mediums, including India ink pen, pencil and watercolors on paper to produce her breathtaking illustrations.

Parisian Turrets by Demi Lang; image via My Modern Met

Constantly searching for new places to sketch, Lang has a passion for architecture and beautiful character buildings. “I am in awe of the architects and craftsmen who make these buildings and I’m interested in the history behind them,” she tells My Modern Met. “When you stop and look closely, there is so much to see.” 

Lang’s process includes traveling and exploring the cities that she visits. By also studying reference photographs, she’s able to carefully inform her decision of which buildings or environments to draw. A lot of her work depicts illustrations of her native UK’s built environment, including drawings of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Brighton Pavilion and the London skyline.

St. Pauls, London by Demi Lang; image via My Modern Met

Her portfolio also includes beautiful international structures, such as the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey and the United States Capitol Building in Washington D.C. According to My Modern Met, Lang is  “particularly attracted to how light falls on the buildings and creates magnificent highlights and shadows. She aims to capture architecture when it’s bathed in sunlight.”

Demi Lang’s popularity can be clearly gauged through her Instagram page. Here, Lang showcases just about every step of her creative process, including documentation of her travels, her desired utensils and, most of all, her work in progress. Through videos and close-up images of her work, every fine detail of her drawings can be observed and understood. 

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A process video of my last post of Highclere Castle. I'm always trying to improve these videos for you, let me know what you think! This drawing actually took about 8 – 10 hours 🙂 ✍ Unipin 0.05 on Arches hot pressed paper ✍ . . . . . . #demilangart #architecture_hunter #highclerecastle #downtonabbey #britishart #handdrawn #pensketch #graphicart #artwork #architectureillustration #architecturedrawing #architecture #blackink #fineliner #arch_more #penandinkdrawing #blackwork #illustrationartist #instaart #sketchbookdrawing #sketch_arq #archilovers #inkwork #blackandwhiteart #archisketch #archisketcher #alvindrafting #draweveryday #sketches

A post shared by 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗶 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗴 (@demilangart) on Mar 11, 2020 at 12:00pm PDT

Lang is very open about her creative process, often having an open dialogue with her followers who are eager to learn more. She hopes that her work will get people to appreciate and find excitement in the details of architecture and the built environment. “My intention is to bring my subject to life on the paper and I hope the viewer experiences this and can appreciate the wonderful architectural details in a realistic and likable form,” says the artist. “I also try to make more ordinary buildings become more interesting for the viewer by using light, shadow, and details.”

Demi Lang sells her original drawings and prints through her website and Etsy. She also has an Amazon storefront where she lists all of her recommended materials. 

Now it’s your turn: Register for the One Drawing Challenge and submit your best architectural drawing for a chance to win $2,500!

Register for the One Drawing Challenge

The post Demi Lang’s Stunning Sketches Highlight the Beauty of Traditional Architecture appeared first on Journal.

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Exploring qualities of light, scale and structure, good section drawings show how form and space come together to shape human experience. These drawings are not unlike art; they explore atmospheric qualities and speak to the human condition. Art galleries and private studios are spaces defined by specific technical needs, and often draw inspiration from the methods and techniques of the artists that work within them.

Exploring the relationship between art, artists and the spaces designed to exhibit their work, the following section drawings take a deeper dive into the architectural language of modern galleries. Representing a range or projects around the world, the drawings highlight how architecture can focus our attention and deepen our appreciation for art.

White Block Gallery by SsD, Seoul, South Korea

The White Block Gallery is a 1500 square meter exhibition and cultural space at the heart of the Heyri Art Valley in South Korea. A matrix of three carefully positioned solid volumes creates seven additional galleries in a compact but open ended configuration. Designed to showcase global contemporary art from super sized sculpture and paintings to multi-media installations, the spaces are unique in proportion and lighting allowing curators to accommodate new future forms of art and media.

Artfarm by Ai Weiwei/FAKE Design and HHF Architects, Salt Point, NY, United States

The Artfarm is situated in upstate New York (a 90 minute drive from the city) on the estate of an art collector and gallery owner. The building is divided into several exhibitions spaces of varying sizes and into areas designed especially for storing artworks. The outer form is a direct consequence of the prefabricated galvanized iron sheets often used in the area for agricultural utility buildings.

Marfa Contemporary Gallery by Rand Elliott Architects, Marfa, TX, United States

The City Arts Center in Oklahoma City was expanding its operations in the region. Having a satellite gallery in Marfa, Texas, a town with a well-established reputation in the international art arena, would help stimulate further interest in City Arts Center throughout the world. The mission of Marfa Contemporary Gallery encourages artistic expression in all its forms through education and exhibitions.

Art Gallery in Buenos Aires by Nicolás Fernández Sanz, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The project was designed for a warehouse space constructed in the mid-20th century on Ramírez de Velasco Street, between Darwin and a crossing of the San Martín train line. The project is, in essence, an intervention that uses existing elements and spaces rather than forcibly imposes an ideal. It makes use of everything that was in working order; the distribution of the space, as well as ways of exploring it, reflect the warehouse itself.

Auckland Art Gallery by Archimedia, Auckland, New Zealand

The new Auckland Art Gallery has developed from a concept that relates as much to the organic natural forms of the landscape as it does from architectural order and character of the important heritage buildings. The new building is characterised through a series of fine “tree-like” canopies that define and cover the entry forecourt, atrium and gallery areas. These light profiled forms “hover” over the stone walls and terraces creating a memorable image and character closely related to the beautiful overhanging canopy of Pohutukawa Trees.

The Condensery – Somerset Regional Art Gallery by PHAB Architects, Toogoolawah, Australia

The 1920s packing shed is the only building remaining from the once prosperous Nestle condensed milk factory — an important centre of Toogoolawah’s economic and social life until the factory was destroyed by fire in 1951. The art gallery and workshop opened in December 2015, positioning the building as a catalyst for the ongoing cultural life of the region.

York Art Gallery by Simpson & Brown, York, United Kingdom

York Art Gallery is a public art gallery in York city center with a collection of paintings from the 14th century to the present day. It also exhibits the most extensive and representative collection of British Studio Ceramics in the country. The Grade II listed building was originally built for the second Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition in 1879. In 1892 it became the new City Art Gallery.

Château La Coste Art Gallery by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Aix-en-Provence, France

This new building, designed by RPBW, rises in the heart of the grapevines of the prestigious Château La Coste realm. The 285-square-meter pavilion serves a dual function, displaying art and preserving wine. Due to the natural topography of the site, the gallery’s design called for contractors to carve a 6-meter-deep valley in the earth so as to fully incorporate the building into the vineyard. The glazed façades and lightweight roof contrast with exposed concrete, which doubles as both the retaining and interior gallery walls.

Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

The post Architectural Drawings: 8 Amazing Art Galleries in Section appeared first on Journal.

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Known for its breathtaking landscapes and rich cultures, the Iberian Peninsula is also home to some of the world’s most incredible residential designs. From luxurious villas to quiet retreats, the diverse housing markets of Spain and Portugal embody the region’s varied climate and vernacular building history. Often created as either extravagant expressions or straightforward, orthogonal volumes with clean lines, modern residences in both countries explore clear transitions and how they define interior and exterior space.

The following projects explore concrete and white stucco designs across a variety of scales and locations across the Iberian Peninsula. Showcasing bold, bright residences that prioritize the framing of views and simplicity of form, the designs stand in stark contrast to their surroundings. Engaging their sites and the opportunities they present, these homes articulate newfound relationships between materials, space and enclosure.

Spanish Residences

Atrium House by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos, Valencia, Spain

Designed to maximize the perception of spaciousness within an urban area, the Atrium house includes a private space that was carved in the middle of the site. Programmatically, the project was organized along the existing slope to the ravine towards views of the Sierra Calderona.

Moraleja House by DAHL + GHG Architects, Madrid, Spain

Located in a residential zone in Madrid, the Moraleja House embraces nature while establishing privacy. Inspired by a volcano, the project places human activity at its core and connects it to a private garden space.

Casa H by Bojaus, Madrid, Spain

Casa H was created to merge interior and exterior space while maintaining privacy. Formed with large windows that embrace natural daylight, the house takes the form of a pure and simple prism that’s hollowed out by large voids.

Ripollés-Manrique House by Teo Hidalgo Nacher, La Parreta, Spain

Located on an isolated estate near the town of Benicassim, the Ripollés-Manrique House overlooks the Mediterranean. Sited atop a hill in Montornés, the residence emerged as a response to steep slopes and a difficult terrain through a series of transition spaces.

Casa Mossegada / Bitten House by arnau estudi d’arquitectura, Sant Feliu de Pallerols, Spain

Artfully crafted to respond to the surrounding context and landscape, the Casa Mossegada was designed around the nearby river and valley, as well as the distant cliffs. Taking the shape of a minimal concrete cube, the residence was formed as a larger volume that opens up with warm interior voids.

Casa Sardineraby Ramón Esteve Estudio, Xàbia, Spain

Located between El Portixol and Cala Blanca, the Sardinera House overlooks the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean atop a dramatic hillside. Walls were used to compress and expand views, while the larger white concrete volumes were made to link the building to the surrounding landscape.

Los Limoneros by Gus Wüstemann Architects, Marbella, Spain

Los Limoneros is sited within a suburb of private villas next to a golf court. Made with a large outdoor garden and a series of covered outdoor spaces, the residence uses a peripheral wall to create privacy from the neighboring buildings while forming a type of “living room landscape.”

Sunflower House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales, El Port de la Selva, Spain

Located between a small fishing village and the Natural Park of the Cabo de Creus, the Sunflower House was sited overlooking the Mediterranean. Framing where the Pyrenees meet the water, the house embraces the landscape through segmented programmatic units and a continuous perimeter.

House on the Castle Mountainside by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos, Ayora, Spain

Integrating into its environment and respecting its site, this residential design was conceived as a piece placed on the ground, an element joining in the gap. Emerging from the mountainside, the project overlooks above the surrounding building fabric and the Valley of Ayora.

House on Cliffside by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos, Alicante, Spain

Conceptualized as a simple work of architecture that respects the land’s natural contour, this cliffside house rests like a shadow above the Mediterranean. A monolithic, stone-anchored structure was used to generate a horizontal platform above a swimming pool below.

Portuguese Residences

Sugarcubes by MONTENEGRO Architects Ltd., Grândola, Portugal

Located between pine trees, this ensemble of white volumes draws angles toward the sea and the Mediterranean forest. The interior spaces differ at every step with unrepeated geometries that provide a unique circulation experience for the occupants.

CASA 2M by SALWORKS, Azores, Portugal

This white volumetric home has minimal façade openings for privacy, while skylights flood the interior spaces with natural light. On the interior, the cedar wood floors juxtapose with the white walls, making the home feel warmer.

House in Possanco by ARX Arquitectos, Alcácer do Sal, Portugal

The House in Possanco is a unique presence on the Alentejo planes. The whiteness of the simple walls bring out an almost abstract figure against the backdrop of the surrounding environment. The asymmetric roof with beautiful skylights creates a moment of pleasant surprise.

Casa das Preguiçosas by Branco-del Rio, Coimbra, Portugal

While this home has an appearance of a single white block from the street, it is composed of two larger divisions that are connected by a shared courtyard. Simple volumes open up to plans that forge a continuous and fluid connectivity throughout the interior spaces.

3 Houses in Meco by DNSJ.arq (Nuno Simões+ Sérgio Rebelo), Sesimbra, Portugal

This ensemble of houses adapts to the surrounding landscape as white walls vary in height in response to existing trees, creating great views through a system of terraces. Materials for the interior spaces and furniture were carefully chosen to create a warm harmony with the white volumes.

BLS HOUSE by M2 SENOS, Ilhavo, Portugal

The slope and shape of the site allows a small, discrete one-floor volume to be revealed at first glance. The main entrance is covered by the top floor and this composition creates a large balcony that optimizes natural light.

DJ House by [i]da arquitectos, Carcavelos, Portugal

A white rectangular volume is cut away to create a variety of interior and exterior spaces. This creates a dynamic program throughout the home with a play on open, closed, private and public spaces.

Portuguese project descriptions written by Sophia Choi. Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

The post White Light: 17 Modern Residences Across the Iberian Peninsula appeared first on Journal.

Have you got awesome architectural drawings to share? If so, we want to hear from you: Register for the One Drawing Challenge for a chance to win $2,500!

Derived from innovations in construction technology and a desire to break away from historical architectural styles, Modernism grew to become one of the most dominant architectural movements of the 20th Century. It followed the principle idea that form should follow function, which saw an embrace of minimalism and a rejection of ornament. While too broad to define succinctly, Modernist architecture typically championed the use of glass, steel and reinforced concrete to build structures defined by light, open spaces and bold, distinctive volumes. Some of architecture’s most profound figures were pioneers of Modernism, including Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. 

As you consider which of your drawings to submit for the Second Annual One Drawing Challenge — architecture’s biggest drawing competition with two Grand Prizes of $2,500 — get inspired by these incredible hand-drawn sketches of Modernism’s most iconic structures.

Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier, 1929; image © Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris

Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier, 1929

Le Corbusier was, one of, if not the most, renown pioneers of modern architecture, belonging to the craft’s first generation of the International Style. He was equally influential as an urban planner, painter and writer, with a career spanning five decades and body of work that can be seen across the world.

One of Le Corbusier’s most famous works and an icon of modernist architecture is the Villa Savoye. This is an original sketch by the architect, showcasing the elevation of the structures southwest façade. Drawn in pencil and white pastel on trace, it focuses on the composition and proportions of the openings and piloti.

Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1939; image courtesy of Diego Inzunza Rosamente

Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1939

American architect, interior designer, writer and educator Frank Lloyd Wright arguably paved the way for contemporary architecture in the United States. His career spanned more than 70 years, during which time he designed more than 1,000 structures. One of Wright’s most celebrated projects, exemplifying the architect’s modernist values, is Fallingwater. This sketch of the iconic house was drawn by Chilean architect and illustrator Diego Inzunza as part of his “Architectural Classics” series.

The Glass House by Philip Johnson, 1949; image courtesy of Diego Inzunza Rosamente

The Glass House by Philip Johnson, 1949

Designed by famed American architect Philip Johnson, Glass House is a historic home, considered to be one of the most exceptional works of modern architecture. It’s minimal structure, open floor plan and floor-to-ceiling glass façade are very reminiscent of Johnson’s mentor, Mies van der Rohe’s, Farnsworth House. This hand drawn sketch, also made by Diego Inzunza, reflects the structure’s simplicity and alignment with its natural surroundings.

David S. Ingalls Rink by Eero Saarinen, 1957; image via not2cad

David S. Ingalls Rink by Eero Saarinen, 1957

The David S. Ingalls Rink is a hockey rink designed by Eero Saarinen that was built for Yale University. It is also referred to as The Whale, due to its whale-like form. The rink employs a 90-meter reinforced concrete arch, a component that Saarinen’s projects became known for, such as The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. This sketch highlights the structure’s unique curvature.

Barcelona Pavilion by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1929; image via BMIAA

Barcelona Pavilion by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1929

The Barcelona Pavilion was designed by German-American architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, another iconic pioneer of modernist architecture. It was built as part of the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain. A significant building in the history of modern architecture, the structure is known for its simple form and use of extravagant materials, such as marble, red onyx and travertine. The drawing was made by Mies, depicting the interior of the pavilion.

S.R. Crown Hall by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1956; image via Pinterest

S.R. Crown Hall by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1956

Another prominent piece of modern architecture designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is S.R. Crown Hall in Chicago, Illinois. It is home of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, whose campus features dozens of buildings designed by the German architect. Crown Hall is architecturally significant and regarded as one of Mies van der Rohe’s masterpieces because of how he was able to refine the basic steel and glass construction style. The building captures simplicity and openness for endless uses. While incredibly minimal and abstract, this sketch by Mies captures the essence of Crown Hall, open and symmetrical.

The Bauhaus Building in Dessau by Walter Gropius, 1925; image via flickr

The Bauhaus Building in Dessau by Walter Gropius, 1925

One of the most influential forces behind modern architecture, design and architectural education was the Bauhaus. The school was founded by architect Walter Gropius, who is regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture and the International Style. The school’s facility in Dessau was designed by Gropius. He designed the various sections of the building differently, separating them according to function. The proliferation of glass and transparency are also key characteristics of the school. These sketches showcase the various pieces of the complex that come together to form the dynamic, asymmetrical structure.

Lovell Health House by Richard Neutra, 1928; image via Architectural Digest

Lovell Health House by Richard Neutra, 1928

The Lovell Health House is a modernist residence that was designed and built by Richard Neutra in 1928. It is regarded as a pillar in architectural history and is the most famous project of Neutra’s career. As seen in this  perspective drawing by Neutra, the house follows many of the principles that came to define the International Style.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1959; image via Riley, T., Reed, P., Alofsin, A., Wright, F., & Museum of Modern Art. (1994). Frank Lloyd Wright : Architect. New York: The Musuem of Modern Art.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1959

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was the last major project designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright, opening in 1959, six months after his death. One of the most notable architectural works in the world, the Guggenheim stands out with its smooth, white concrete structure and swirling, cylindrical form. The museum’s curvature is even more impactful from within, in which visitors are met with a massive atrium and steadily ascending path that leads to the sky.

This sketch of the Guggenheim was drawn by architect and artist Marion Mahony Griffin. One of the first licensed female architects in the world, Griffin worked with Frank Lloyd Wright, producing many beautiful watercolor renderings of buildings and landscapes that became known as a staple of Wright’s style. 

152 Elizabeth Street by Tadao Ando, 2018; image via Architizer

152 Elizabeth Street by Tadao Ando, 2018

This is a selection from Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Tadao Ando’s sketchbook. It depicts 152 Elizabeth Street, a condominium in New York City that stands out with its tall glass windows and poured-in-place concrete panels. The illustration is both minimal and expressive, providing the key elements of the structure.

Now it’s your turn: Register for the One Drawing Challenge and submit your best architectural drawing for a chance to win $2,500!

Register for the One Drawing Challenge

The post 10 Drawings of the World’s Most Iconic Modernist Architecture appeared first on Journal.

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Canadian residential design has continuously evolved alongside the country’s culture and environmental conditions. Large-scale immigration helped shape Canada into one of the most ethnically diverse nations in the world, a place that mixes styles, traditions and values. Simultaneously, a northern climate with subarctic and arctic weather has greatly impacted the vernacular and modern building traditions of these diverse groups. In a country where igloos and luxury urban real estate coexist, the similarities between residential projects can be few and far between.

The following collection takes a closer look at Canadian houses wrapped in black cladding. Built with matte material envelopes that explore depth and texture, the projects stand in stark contrast to their surrounding landscapes. Designed with particular attention to craft, the projects balance privacy while providing views to the Canadian landscape. Though their exteriors are dark and solemn in nature, the projects are typically formed with warm, spacious interiors to keep out the cold. Juxtaposing different programs and outdoor areas, the houses connect to natural settings with simple geometry. Together, they begin to reflect Canada’s modern residential design culture while embracing the dark side.

Fogo Island Artist Studios by Saunders Architecture, Newfoundland, Canada

Sited on an island in the North Atlantic, these artist studios were designed to respect a dramatic landscape and local culture. Created with three buildings housing six total studios, the project features bold geometry that lightly touches the natural environment. Elevated to provide views to the sea, the buildings were oriented so that occupants could observe the area’s changing seasons while the structure itself weathers over time.

La Héronnière by Alain Carle Architecte, Wentworth, Canada

La Héronnière was created as an interpretation of recycling. Exploring upcycling and renewable energy, the project reorganizes the relationships of its site to create a plateau for outdoor living. Defined by the programmatic concepts of Reuse, Supply, Occupation and Distinction, the home reflects the clients’ desire to live symbiotically and harmoniously with nature.

Cross-Laminated-Timber Cottage by Kariouk Associates, Québec, Canada

Located next to a private lake in a remote, wooded location, this cottage was designed to replace a decaying, family-owned structure on the site. The home was created using dark, prefabricated cross-laminated timber that forms the project’s outer shell. The new cottage features an open spatial arrangement while using the former building’s original dimensions and orientation to the lake.

Bolton Residence by _naturehumaine, Bolton-Est, Canada

The Bolton Residence was located on a natural plateau within a wooded, sloping site with views to Mount Orford. The country house was built with two stacked volumes that are anchored and cantilevered on the hillside. A gable roof was used to create a more spacious interior, while the design’s utilitarian program was carved out of a black volume at the house’s center.

Salt Spring Island House by Springer Architects, British Columbia, Canada

Sited off the coast of British Columbia, the Salt Spring Island House was made atop a rocky slope surrounded by mature trees. Built around the client’s art collection, the home was created with a dark bronze, corrugated metal exterior to create minimal visual impact among its surroundings. Interior spaces were designed with continuous connection to the outside.

MODERNest House 3 by MODERNest, Toronto, Canada

Opening up to create a private courtyard while taking advantage of uninterrupted skyline views, this residence was made with a contemporary and warm aesthetic. Clad with textured black wood siding, the project was formed to create shaded exterior decks, entry porches and large skylight elements.

Echo House by Kariouk Associates, Ottawa, Canada

Echo House was made as a vertical loft that opened four stories between the basement and roof. Large new parlor windows were added to capture views of the Rideau Canal and surrounding exterior space. The project’s more private spaces, like the “book vault” and den, were suspended inside the larger vertical volume.

Kicking Horse Residence by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Golden, Canada

Located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, Kicking Horse Residence was designed to accommodate larger family groups and directly connect to the landscape. Surrounded by an alpine forest and ski trail, the project was formed as a dense bar and open shell oriented to mountain views.

Closse Residence by _naturehumaine, Montréal, Canada

The Closse Residence was reimagined as a suburban Montréal home that embraced daylight around a central stair. This sculptural staircase was made with frosted glass, maple veneer and hot rolled steel to create a powerful focal point inside. The project’s exterior was repainted and restored, while a new dormer was added to contain an additional second-floor program.

Clear Lake House by MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects, Parry Sound, Canada

Designed as a contemporary and modern cottage, Clear Lake House was created with a tent-like envelope that encompasses the interior and exterior program. Advocating an intimate scale within its forested site, the house takes advantage of the sloped site and views to the nearby lake. Three different programmatic volumes were crafted around privacy, views and separation.

The Wetlands by Alain Carle Architecte, Wentworth-Nord, Canada

This expertly crafted home explores the scale of rural landscapes and settlements, including large, empty spaces and aggregated building masses. Blurring hierarchies while establishing different perceptions of place, the design was imagined as a complex within an interconnected landscape. The three structures were made with black painted wood around common outdoor spaces linked by a shared base.

The Treehouse by Forestgreen Creations Inc., Pelham, Canada

Featuring a cantilevered porte-cochère and tri-level design, the Treehouse is located along the Niagara Peninsula. Surrounded by a century-old Carolinian forest and vineyards, the project features floor-to-ceiling glazing and an outdoor area for enjoying views to the landscape.

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