Long brick

An innovative residence for young students ARCHITEM Wolff Shapiro Kuskowski architects, a Montréal-based firm, is proud to unveil one of its most recent projects, an innovative residence for young students. Built for Bishop’s College School, this private boarding school provides a family-style environment for 270 students, age 12 to 17, coming from 37 different countries. Located near Sherbrooke, Québec, the century-old campus is set on a site of exceptional beauty, on the banks of the St. Francis River. The original buildings on this 250-acre campus are rooted in a long educational and architectural tradition.   The construction of an eighth residence for students, th... More

Beautiful long grey bricks clad the double-story extension to this property near the Chilterns in Seer Green. The extension forms a new volume externally while merging old and new spaces internally.   Approaching Long Brick House, you would not have the slightest idea that behind a standard door lies a home that beams with natural sunlight and clever design ideas. The existing dis-jointed house had endured multiple conversions, over time it had become a house full of small spaces and no cohesion. It lacked a key focus, a place where a family could spend time together. The house seemed to almost reject the beautiful garden. The easy solution was to knock down the house and rebuild it. The smart solution was to transform.   Our... More

Xiao Jing Wan is a coastal urban development located to the east of Shenzhen. Foster + Partners has designed a mixed-use development consisting of a hotel, clubhouse, retail and residential components in the region, also including a 55,000 square-metre university campus for China Resources Group. Situated astride a hill, with exceptional views towards the South China Sea, the management training institute accommodates 500 students, with residential facilities for up to 300 students and 35 staff.   Five teaching buildings and the innovation centre flank the central boulevard at the crest of the hill, which terminates with the main auditorium building, containing the main lecture theatre for 580 people and other meeting rooms. The libr... More

Nestled within a sloping garden plot in South London, this discrete pavilion style house sits quietly amongst the trees.The house wraps around the boundaries of the site to create a parking courtyard to the front and private contained garden to the rear.A low lying timber clad element with a cantilevering roof contains the bedrooms and bathrooms at the front of the house. This gives way to a long brick wrapping form to the rear, containing an open plan kitchen and dining area with glazed doors leading out to the garden.Photography by Martin Gardner More

A 40,000 sq ft. (Phase-1) Corporate office cum factory set-out in the city of Hanoi, Vietnam, explores the rustic and discreet material palette aligning the client requirements to the site context. Being a corporate office and factory setup within the same campus (in fact adjoining each other), spaces were planned introvert. A series of courts interwoven in the work zones breathe freshness in the ambience. A gaze across the office presents one with the pleasing view of landscape and water instead of the blind partitions and decorative interiors.The whole building is divided into front and back bays. The front bay of the building adjoins the factory floor beyond, separated from it by a long brick wall. The reception area is a bold statement... More

This building from the 60's, initially meant to be an architecture office, has hosted several tertiary activities before returning to its first assignment. The structure therefore had to be entirely revisited. Thankfully, the existing lay-out allowed for some flexibility which revealed useful to accommodate the new functions.We implemented three different programs :° the groundfloor was torn down to the basic steel structure ;° the basement, previously used as a storage area, central heating room and a garage - with access only from the outside - was connected to the groundfloor by the addition of a staircase in the central core ;° the rear facade was broadened on its full length.The building now welcomes :° on the ground floor, a back offi... More

Transforming Chester’s Odeon The 2½ years construction project to transform Chester’s Art Deco Odeon cinema into an international cultural centre has reached its completion on time and on budget, opening to the public on Thursday 11 May 2017. Storyhouse brings a theatre and cinema back to Chester after a decade long absence with collaboration and partnership at the very heart of its establishment. Storyhouse aims to connect people through storytelling and seeks to create great art. It strives to innovate and democratise its work, in order to empower communities. It asks two vital social questions: who are we and how shall we live? Storyhouse incorporates the Grade 2 listed shell of the locally loved former 1936 Odeon cinema and a new br... More

The client, a young professional, approached us to extend her small 1950’s infill terraced house in Peckham to create a more usable kitchen and dining area with a better connection to the rear garden. The existing house had particularly low ceiling heights and narrow, awkward living spaces. The client felt that the house had been built from poor quality materials which compared poorly with the Victorian neighbours. The brief was to create a bright and open living space with materials of quality and character. nimtim took an ambitious approach for extending and updating this small and unremarkable house. Taking inspiration from the Case Study Houses of the 1950s, as well as traditional and contemporary Japanese domestic architecture, nimt... More

Global India ‘India becomes the fastest growing large economy in the world with GDP Growth rocketing to 7.4%, which is the fastest among all the large economies of the world.’ The statement above clearly indicates that the Neo-Rich society of India on rise and is going to be a formidable force in the times to come. The effect of it can be seen in the increased trend of building individual houses with ultra-modern amenities & facilities. One of the most important inventions of the last century & the one which gives pleasure to the core to all is unarguably the ‘movies’ & past one century has resulted that this entertainment medium is the most priced possession of house hold of riches. ‘With 356 million 10-24 year-olds, India has the... More

Sala Ayutthaya is the twenty-six-room boutique hotel, right across a most picturesque site of the old capital of Thailand along the Chao Phraya River. Phutthai Sawan Temple was built in 1353 AD by the first monarch of Ayutthaya Kingdom. It becomes the view of the restaurant and the riverfront suites at Sala. The main entry of Sala is next to a Sala Tree on U-thong Road. It is a single iron door on a long brick facade, leading us to the low wooden ceiling reception and the double volume art gallery. Within this space, the dominant feature is an antique wooden door that Onion designs the framing for. It is placed between the transparent mirrors, opening to the exterior courtyard, narrowed by the paralleled brick walls of multi-curved geometri... More

Booked for ever A long brick house by Foldes Architects, Hungary Minimalist design meets everlasting intellectual values. Temple of books shaped into a long brick house in the side of the Big-Proud Peak, Hungary, from Foldes Architects The project initiated by an intellectual couple, had a clear starting point, as highlighted to architects Laszlo Foldes and Peter Sonicz: “We own a length of books something like 100 meters”. The owners of the site had found the best location to retire from work and the noise of Budapest in a rich natural environment, at the side of the Big-Proud Peak. Pilisborosjeno, a town some 15 km to North Buda, stretches in between hills surrounded by villas that inhabit the Pilis hillside. The plot is appro... More

Nature, wellness and design – these were the guiding principles for 4a Architekten when constructing the Spreewald Spa Hotel in Burg. Situated in the heart of the Spree Forest next to the Spreewald Therme spa, also planned and built by 4a Architekten as early as 2005, this 4-star hotel offers its guests a feel-good atmosphere to relax in since its opening in December 2012. The concept for the hotel is based on the architects’ extensive experience in giving rooms an atmospheric effect along with the aspiration to construct a functional, long-lasting and simultaneously aesthetically pleasing building. “A hotel for the Spreewald Therme spa” – this was the task set by the client and future hotel operator Kannewischer Management AG for 4a Arc... More

The old cowshed in Glebe was a surprising find; a rare opportunity to preserve some of the character and charm of this eclectic neighbourhood and one we encouraged our clients to seize when they sought our advice on purchasing the property. The cowshed sat on a small parcel of land bounded on three sides by roads. The building was simple, essentially a long brick wall that held the urban edge of corner and street and returned to house a few bedrooms in the place of the former stalls. It was the most basic of accommodation but the shed had a worn patina of stories and was well situated, hugging the southern boundary with provision for a private, north facing courtyard. Our clients share a vision for gregarious family life which is refl... More