Timber

Nestled in the rolling foothills of northwest Calgary, Canada, the Shane Homes YMCA at Rocky Ridge (Shane Homes YMCA) is one of the largest YMCA’s in the world and provides the region with essential wellness amenities. This facility serves as the regional hub for community gathering, cultural programs, recreational facilities, and child care services. The extensive glazing and unifying curved timber roof that links each space creates an inclusive and vibrant atmosphere, engaging passersby and heightening curiosity.    The Shane Homes YMCA takes inspiration from the rolling hills and layered horizons. Its park-like site allows natural recreation uses; pathways curve through the site connecting users to the reconstructed wet... More

The concept of the brand is to be a home instead of a shop, where visitors feel comfortable and always attended by a cyclist like themselves. Thus, an image was created to reflect the principles of the company. On the one hand, a cozy place that evoked the comfort of a house was conceived, where anyone who enters feels as if they were in their own living room, relaxing comfortably with some antique furniture and old posters. Surrounding this space, bicycles racks and wheelable furniture allows for spatial flexibility and can be adapted to any type of product, from accessories, to garment and whole bikes, and be reconfigured easily according to the needs of the store. All these pieces of custom-made furniture double as storage spaces to cou... More

 The existing Auditorium, is a great example of Modernism, designed by iconic Israeli architects Arieh Sharon and Benjamin Idelson in 1955. The 2,000m² building is the largest performance hall on the Weizmann Institute campus.   HQ Architects were commissioned to undertake the renovation and extension of this iconic building, which falls under strict ‘preservation’ rules, and where the facades and contour of the building cannot be modified. However, the ambition for the new Michael Sela Auditorium was to double the area of the existing lobby, and add a new social space suitable to accommodate different activities that go beyond the standard use of foyer as a waiting space. The concept is based on the observa... More

The Ark launched in September 2019 as a new highly sustainable facility for Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice, specifically designed to support children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions and their families.    Situated within a 7.5-acre nature reserve in Barnet, North London, The Ark is the first new hospice building in London for ten years, and will allow the charity to increase the scale and quality of their work with children and families.   The building was designed and delivered by Squire & Partners, with landscape by Gensler, as part of a team of high profile built environment professionals working collaboratively to support the Build The Ark appeal. More

Hidden in a large tree plantation in the suburbs of Hangzhou is a prefab prototype house that the wellington firm Bonnifait + Giesen designed in collaboration with Jimu, a Chinese design and manufacturing company.MiniHut feels grander than its 36 square metres, thanks to a high stud that contains living areas in the main volume and sleeping areas on a mezzanine. Additional modules, meanwhile, have been designed to serve as entrances, utility sheds and covered decks. And, with one side of the 3×8-metre structure filled with windows, the hut can take advantage of views and have a connection to the outdoors – benefits one might associate with something much grander than a small prefabricated timber building.The idea was presented at the Green... More

Creek House is a private bespoke new build house located in Bosham, West Sussex, completed in the summer of 2018 by Winchester based architects AR Design Studio. The clients, passionate about design and longstanding active members of the community, came to AR Design Studio in 2015 with a vision for their life-time home in the village.The clients saw potential in this prime location on the periphery of the Bosham estuary, and despite difficult planning constraints, the client’s contemporary vision combined with AR Design Studio’s experience set out to achieve a sensitive design appropriate to the idyllic setting.The site is set within the Chichester Harbour Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Bosham Conservation Area, striving to protect... More

A private beach house in Portsea by Vibe Design Group, designed to take in all of its surrounds – from passing ships in the distant bay views, to its immediate rural setting. The glass ends to the pool draw your eye to set the tone from the initial drive up. Behind a concrete fin, the ultimate pool deck that conjures a scene from a Slim Aarons photo shoot. Playing into the pool house style was the design for the guest retreat. The space sits at its own level while maintaining direct access from the lower storey. A recreational deck wraps the glazed walls which view back through the pool in one direction and across the tree tops in the other. Complete with veneer robe and a walk around ensuite, it’s the ideal retreat for guests. More

Three years after the closing om the skatepark on the NDSM Wharf, Amsterdam Noord found a new location for it’s indoor skatepark. This time it’s on the Hamerstraatgebied, situated on the north side of the IJ.The renovated hall at the Aambeeldstraat offers 1400m2 space for skate activities, including recreation and lessons on every level. Besides, there is a 150m2 catering facility with a double function as a ‘canteen’ and external hospitality.This newly created hospitality unit protrudes two meters from the original façade. The Glass entrance façade functions as an intermediary between the skatepark and the outside space. The timber frame construction of the façade is cladded with horizontal Fraké slats. The striking slope in the roof refer... More

Designed to make the most of the stunning long distance views over Bournemouth this tired 1960’s bungalow in Colehill has been transformed into a contemporary family home. Replacing an underused conservatory with a new rear extension creates a light and airy family kitchen diner that links the inside spaces to the terrace and garden area. This link to the garden is captured from the moment you enter the dwelling, visible from the new double height entrance hall with its stunning bespoke oak and glass staircase, this leads up to the first floor accommodation which includes a master bedroom with ensuite two further bedrooms and a family bathroom. More

One Shearwater Drive, sits comfortably into it’s coastal lookout in Mt Martha on Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula. An elemental palette of materials and finishes that will weather well provides a stylish and hardy skin to the luxury within. On approach, the house hunkers down into its surrounds, ably aided by Vibe’s landscaping of the site. Visitors are greeted by a totemic rectangular form clad in black Alucobond. It has function as a garage, but could just as easily be an abstract sculpture, a geometric outcrop on the coastal terrain. This welcome is indicative of a deliberately ambiguous, understated entry.As you proceed, you pass a work sculpted in steel by Australian artist Russell Petherbridge. Onward, and in through an... More

The house was extensively modified in the 1980s yetsuffered from a fragmented plan, poor connectivity betweenthe principal living spaces and restrictive ceiling heights.In 2013 Studio Octopi were appointed to recapture andpreserve the original proportions of the period terrace,whilst reinterpreting the layout to suit modern family living.A 10m high glass infill extension slots between thereconfigured existing closet wing and the neighbouringproperty, divided as two sash windows, it forms a doubleheight dining area at basement level and a master ensuiteat first floor. An open tread stair allows views to stretch fromthe basement across the double height space to the firstfloor.The closet wing, which was extended in brick; enabledthe upper flo... More

A truly laid-back holiday house this design seeks to adhere to a minimal aesthetic genre, the clients wanted to create a sophisticated, textural house with a rich materiality that wasn’t overwhelming or fussy.A busy couple with teenage children, the clients were specific with their functional brief, with an elevated and relatively open and level site to work with, this house is all about orientation and creating areas for living in at different times of the day. The foundation of the architecture was to create two rectangular forms perpendicular to one another to allow circulation around and between the forms. The first floor, a black, timber lined box and the lower rectilinear form created by intersecting in-situ concrete walls with timber... More