Architecture & Web Art

Archive for the ‘Architecture’ Category

Architect: Bates Masi Architects
Location: Noyack, NY, USA
Client: Private
Structural Engineer: Steven L. Maresca
Contractor: Brian Mannix
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Bates Masi Architects

The client, a New York actor, sought a retreat for relaxation and casual entertaining on a restrictive narrow lot fronting the tidal estuary of Noyack Creek. The house became a study in architectural theatre: a series of spaces in a carefully scripted sequence that subtly reflect his professional life.

The path begins at the front door where perforated privacy screens slide apart like a curtain, revealing the loft-like living and dining spaces. The direction of the deck boards that make up the flooring is altered to demarcate the path through the space, emerging seamlessly to an exterior waterside deck. A broad stair to the second level, parallel with an interior stair along a glazed wall, acts as tiered seating for entertaining and looking at the water view beyond. Beneath the stair, hidden backstage for maximum privacy, the guest room shares the water view through a nearly hidden sliding door. Guests emerge as if through a trap door.

Thom Mayne has revealed his design for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science at Victory Park, Dallas. Mayne describes the project as a “living educational tool featuring architecture inspired by nature and science”. The new facility will provide 180,000 sq ft of display and archive space on a 4.7 acre site in the north of downtown Dallas.

Museums, armatures for collective societal experience and cultural expression, present new ways of interpreting the world. They contain knowledge, preserve information and transmit ideas; they stimulate curiousity, raise awareness and create opportunities for exchange. As instruments of education and social change, museums have the potential to shape our under- standing of ourselves and the world in which we live.

As our global environment faces ever more critical challenges, a broader understanding of the interdependence of natural systems is becoming more essential to our survival and evolution. Museums dedicated to nature and science play a key role in expanding our understanding of these complex systems.

Architect: Isay Weinfeld
Location: Sao Paulo, Brazil
Built area: 635sqm
Year: 2004
Photographs: Leonardo Finotti

This is a 4-level house built for a family of 4 – a couple and 2 teenage kids. Very informal people, they wanted a warm, comfortable house where they could all host friends and have fun together. From the street a few steps up, one enters the house on ground level. Wide living areas – sitting, dining and TV rooms – were designed all in succession and open onto the garden, the patio and even the pool so as to allow for full integration between spaces, and interaction between guests. Privacy is yet possible to get in this house, as large doors may slide out from recesses in the walls and separate rooms as necessary.

Architects: Max Pritchard Architect
Location: Kangaroo Island, SA, Australia
Engineering Consultant: Engineers Pocius & Associates
Project year: 2008
Project Area: 1,548 sqm
Photographs: Sam Noonan & George Apostolidis

Southern Ocean Lodge is being described as Australia’s first “Super Lodge”; and has already been named by Tatler Magazine following a worldwide survey as Hotel of the Year 2009.

The architecture relates closely with the dramatic site. Tucked back behind forty metre high cliffs, large sweeping window walls capturing the expansive views of the wild Southern Ocean and pristine bush. A strong sculptural element is the one hundred metre long wall of Kangaroo Island limestone weaving from a covered entrance, through the largely untouched bush and into the Main Lodge.

Twenty one guest suites cascade down the slope from the Main Lodge, with access from a Breezeway ramp. Roofs follow the slope of the land, but with a gentle upward, wave-like curve every fourth suite.

Project: Monte Elbruz Building
Author: Garduño Arquitectos
Juan Garduño, Ernesto Flores, Ricardo Guzmán, Daniel Banda
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Use: Multifamily House
Site Area: 1,300 sq mt
Bldg Area: 6,300 sq mt
Bldg Coverage Ratio: 70%
Gross Floor Ratio: 30%
Structural Design: Diseño y Supervision S.C.
Electrical Engineer: Arturo Guerra
Design Period: 2007
Completion Period: 2008
Photography: Sófocles Hernández
Paul Czitrom

The lot was located in a difficult area, originally classified as high-density and was already fully developed, adjoining buildings 14 to 30 stories high. The regulations were later changed and, when the project was being designed, the limitation considered a maximum of six levels plus a roof garden.