Wall

Sakkho tiles are available in multiple patterns and create amazing visual effects. The tiles are versatile in their application suitable for interior or exterior residential and commercial projects. Sakkho tiles can be installed and used as decking, ceiling, partition walls, wall covering, facade and furniture design, and are manufactured with high-quality hardwood. Mehr

"Windows are not necessary. I want a closed house." In addition to this unique request, a difficult situation was that the permissible building area was only approximately 13 tsubos (approximately 43m2). While not giving an impression that the house opens toward the outside by installing the least number of openings, our main subject was to provide a spacious chamber and create a richness of appearance in the house. We devised and utilized the three-dimensions of the building to meet the demand. That is, we clarified the role and pattern of each opening and related the openings to the cross-sectional development of the building. Cross-sectionaly the house consists of three cores: space for get-togethers, stairs, and kitchen and bathroom,... Mehr

Rambla House, is a weekend house located along the central coast of Chile, at Zapallar City, about 175 km from Santiago City. The site is next to the coastal pedestrian promenade linking the Zapallar downtown area with the ZapallarCemetery, with a privileged view of the Pacific Ocean. The Rambla´s house interior spaces were designed so that there is continuity and a direct connection between indoor spaces and the outdoors spaces, while protecting the main spaces from harsh local coastal climate, characterized by strong south winds and excessive sun exposure from the west. The barbecue space ceiling opens up with a skylight to vent fumes and to capture the northern light into the interior spaces. The house is constructed on concrete... Mehr

From a small lot with it’s unique implantation, this project has raised early on a couple of challenges… and along with them, ideas emerged. The box housing deviates from the gable to create a vertical yard (glass box), with a straight ladder connecting all floors, an allusion to the famous stairs of Alfama, running between the all 4 floors walls and linking the various dimensions. This courtyard is the heart of the house, bringing light to the interior, enhancing the main entrance and creating a real exterior/interior relationship. In terms of material, we chose to polish the rectangular form and give the block the face of a tree, making it one more element of the square, which resulted together with the existing tree and water fountai... Mehr

The guiding principles and strategies of the project for the Pocinho Center for High Performance Rowing play their part in a dense and inextricable mixture that includes the peculiarities and identity of a pre-existing, specific “place”; the characteristics and demands of a very recent program; and the needs and wants of the architectural act. The first ones, about the specificity of the site, taken in a broad sense, as a "cultural being", it concerns mainly the Douro River Valley as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the correspondent ancestral expression of men´s intervention and transformation of the landscape. Regarding the second, being a new program demanding architectural attention (the High Performance Sports Centers), in many ways... Mehr

Nebuta-no-ie Warasse / molo + d/dt Arch + Frank la Rivière Architects inc A Home for the Nebuta Festival and its floats Text by Frank la Rivière (FRA inc) April 2011 In August, Nebuta Festival (origin 8th century) fever descends upon Aomori. Nebuta, created anew each year, take the form of huge (9 x 7 x 5.5 m) paper lantern like floats showing warriors from Japanese and Chinese history and myth in dramatic poses often showing battle scenes. Roughly 20 large Nebuta are paraded through the streets accompanied by drums, bamboo flutes and hordes of revelers in traditional attire, dancing and chanting. The Nebuta-no-ie Warasse is dedicated to all aspects of the Nebuta festival. Located in front of Aomori train station, there were the c... Mehr

The building resides effortlessly on a soft slope with privileged views to the valley of Montaña Monarca, in Morelia, Mexico. The building has been conceived as a homogenous stone mass, hollowing out a huge opening with an inviting forced perspective effect caused by the asymmetric glassed walls that frames the natural panorama (meant to evoke renaissance perspective drawings). The amber atmosphere created through the filtering of the natural light through the stained glass, blends with the colored space, generating a chromatic continuity that during the course of the day moves imperceptibly through an endless scale of oranges, red and yellows. Light also enters through two wooden skylights located in the middle of the room, helping to... Mehr

This is a conversion project that totally renovated a 25-year old office building, located on a back street of Omotesando in Tokyo, in order to facilitate commercial functions. The client requested a design that would have a façade expression differentiated from the surrounding buildings, and that would be a part of future tenants’ branding. We aimed at a design with a soft expression that would be favorably accepted by passersby, while standing out from the surrounding buildings that tended to have physically hard expressions. By removing the out-of-fashion decorative frame structure on the existing building frame as much as possible, the primary shape was exposed. Then, metallic louvers were placed by using computer design to add a m... Mehr

This house is the intrinsic result of the material that it is built from. Entirely structured by a striated concrete block, Aguazul was an exercise of reinterpretation of materials and construction techniques that create a volume interrupted only by the need for light and ventilation for the spaces it contains. Orienting all areas to the south and controlling the views towards the changing atmospheres provided by its materiality, the program reflects a conscious analysis of the contemporary needs of a family in Mexico. Likewise, its aesthetic speaks of an object that will remain intact over time, sustaining itself and whoever inhabits it. Mehr