Building materials

Nahid Building has an administrative function and is designed and built on a 180 square meters plot in seven stories. The basement and the ground floor consist of lobby, parking, and the caretaker unit. Upper floors host the administrative zones and the total area of each floor is approximately 100 square meters. Also, there is a conference room on the roof with a total area of 25 square meters. Besides, the roof hosts a small garden as large as 80 square meters. The surroundings are filled with lots of apathetic buildings, marked by streets which split this grey mass and lead their way to another grey mass. By accepting the urban construction regulations, we had to build a building in a pre-determined allowed occupancy level, with a pre-de... More

Jávri Lodge is a boutique hotel situated right on the border of the wilderness in Saariselkä Finnish Lapland,. The building used to be Finland longest serveing president Urho Kekkonen´s skiing hideout hosting such guests as royalty, superpower leaders, even the Shah. In the year 2017 the Lodge was expanded with new Main entrance, Dining hall and four new hotelrooms – With three copper glad building volymes. In front of and on top of the old building. The guests of Jávri Lodge spend their days in various outdoor activities. Thats why the hotel is designed to function as warm and cosy refuge where you rest, relax and enjoy culinaristic experiences after an active day spent in the wilderness. Marc Goodwin D... More

The Irvine building isn't a typical high-rise with marble floors and gleaming cookie cutter apartments. Its history goes back over 100 years, functioning first as a warehouse, in 2018 it's been completely reimagined and with Mega Supply Pro's help renovated into an authentic contemporary West Philadelphia living experience. Caption The 150 units feature large living spaces that provide the perfect palette to express a unique urban style anyone could be proud of. To facilitate this transformation Mega Supply Pro manufactured a series of custom aluminum windows with stylish roller shades that add light and expanse to any space. Interiors also include deluxe-sized closets with customizable mill work and hanging racks, as well as modern c... More

We were presented with a run-down single fronted south facing terrace, to create a home for a single occupant on a low budget. The brief was simple: 2 front rooms, one of which would be a bedroom. The rest of the house was to be kitchen, living and eating areas, a space for a car at the rear, and a bathroom.   The restricted house needed space, light, volume, longevity and strength.   We wanted to make the home feel unexpectedly spacious and bright. This has been achieved through;1. permitting light to enter from lots of different directions, from the roof, the north, the south and the east 2. inserting a central courtyard, which in time will be leafy and green, and which benefits three spaces in the home 3. creating high ce... More

Kenzo Makino & Associates’ steel roofing factory in Kyoto showcases the company's diverse products on its eight monitor roofs with various textures.   For the relocation and expansion of galvanized steel roofing factory in the harbor of Northern Kyoto, programs such as exhibition space and a factory tour route are incorporated into its production space and a sales office. This new factory’s roofs and walls are made of building materials manufactured or handled by the company, as if it replicated itself on its own. Standing just 500 m away from the coastline, the factory shows its weathering quality over years, like product samples, exposed against salty sea breeze.   Along with economic efficiency under strict... More

The site is in Khandala, Alibaug district. A rocky east-facing slope, growing forest trees, descends to the vast lake. The house is designed as a place to meet and spend time together for a multigenerational family. The plan investigates how architecture can be actively used by the inhabitants to moderate between a collective experience and individual privacy. As the home owners like to entertain, a separate building houses a space for entertainment and parties, and a swimming pool lets people cool off on a hot day and also merges with the lake to create a infinity pool effect. Off the living/dining room is a pergola that follows the steel grid lines of the roof, creating the feeling that the house extends itself, mixing outdoor and indoo... More

A heritage-listed worker’s cottage in the inner-Brisbane suburb of Petrie Terrace presented an irresistible challenge for bureau^probertsDirector Terry McQuillan and his interior designer wife Charlie.A small and steeply sloping site,together with a compact floorplan andbuilding challenges owing to the cottage’s age and location, were no barrier to the pair’s imagination.   “We wanted to create a contemporary home that not only overcame the site’s limitations but unlocked its potential too,” Terry says.   The cottage is affectionately known as Albert Villa, a homage to its original builder Peter Albert who constructed the home back in 1885. Unlike Albert, Terry and Charlie were able to take... More

Is it possible to unify the urban scenery by minimizing the formic expression of buildings as singular objects and emphasizing on the city as a whole? Unitizing different elements of the building including walls, windows, doors, etc., as well as reducing the variety of building materials could somehow address the so called issues.   The project was designed as the headquarters for Kohan Ceram Brick Manufacturing Company. Preserving the existing concrete structure, it was decided to Design a special brick (by architect) to represent the factory.   Now the question is, could this well-known building material move beyond its simple role and help changing the perceptions towards a complicated building and to combine different buil... More

Koh Kong, a peninsula in the Gulf of Thailand and part of Cambodia’s 450-kilometre coastline, features a number of closely interrelated ecosystems. Expansive mangrove forests carve out small islands, waterways, and ecologically diverse estuaries along the coast, creating a vital and fragile ecosystem which local communities rely on for their livelihoods. In recent decades, economic development in the country, characterized by widespread natural resource exploitation, has devastated Koh Kong’s wildlife and has marginalized local communities from the forests, fisheries, and arable areas which they need to live and thrive. Koh Kong Mangrove Lodging provides an alternative model of development, one that is rooted in the preservatio... More

Chesa Futura (‘house of the future’ in Romansch) fuses state-of-the-art computer design tools with centuries-old construction techniques to create an environmentally sensitive apartment building. Although its form is novel, it is framed and clad in timber – one of the oldest and most sustainable building materials. In Switzerland, building in timber is particularly appropriate in that it follows traditions developed and refined over centuries. The building’s larch shingles respond naturally to exposure to the elements, changing colour over time to a silver-grey, and should last for a hundred years without the need for maintenance.   The building consists of three storeys of apartments and two underground level... More

A 100m2 playground with the name “Dune Square” was recently completed inside the Malaya Ordynka residential complex in Moscow. In designing this space, the Bureau Druzhba architectural practice applied some key principles for the design of child-friendly areas that have emerged from psychological and medical research. As a result, alongside traditional equipment such as swings, a slide and a sandbox, the playground also contains some abstract structures that are difficult to identify and can have a multitude of functions – a submarine? animal dens? – that do not impose a theme on the children for their games but instead encourage them to let their imaginations run wild, inventing new worlds and adventures every time... More

The Relax House is located on a flat site with a view on the Norwegian Fjords. It captures different portions of context and grant a different vision of living. The volume with a cross plan defines as a new landscape. Each "cell" revolves around a central pivot. The plan generates an intimate spatiality with an unusual approach. Franco Rega The central body is surrounded by full-height wooden cabinets, these become partitions. A continuous play of lights and shadows is generated by the large windows and eyes created in the attics, like a construct created by the fruits of space looking at the sky from the inside. The house is reduced to the overlap of elementary forms and to a basic conception of the use of building materials. The str... More

On-site of the former Maggi factory in Kemptthal, a working cluster with 200 workplaces was built in an existing historical building.   The three-double height storeys with partially existing galleries, were converted into structured cluster offices. A two-storey extension accommodates the cafeteria and two orangeries, used as meeting places and executive floor. A specific cluster office concept with acoustic lighting was developed.   Pendant luminaires equipped with tunable white light, provide general lighting for the office areas.For an optimized use of the structure, a sculptural staircase was implemented to connect all floors. Additional to the consultants for the acoustic general lighting setup, the lighting designer inv... More