Architecture & Web Art

Posts Tagged ‘steel’

This building is one of the latest build projects signed by Frank Gehry, and is located in Las Vegas. The center is funded and supported by Keep Memory Alive, and it’s supposed to become a national resource for the most current research and scientific information for the treatment of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington ’s Diseases, and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) as well as focusing on prevention, early detection and education. The complete name of the project is Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, and from the images you can see that is nothing ordinary about it, as we were accustomed to Gehry’s projects.

Following images courtesy of Matthew Carbone:

The center hosts these 3 main spaces:

1. Medical building for patient care and research. Featuring simple, functional interiors and a lego like exterior of slightly disorderly blocks.

The project is now completed, the photos by Iwan Baan and a complete set of drawings and diagrams courtesy of REX.

Despite the mix of the existing concrete structure with the new additions and the complex inner core (dubbed the “showcase”), the exterior of the building is read as a whole. The structural “X” of the glass panels on the facade break the monotony of the box on the outside, contrasting with the mirror like finish of the volume on top.

The “showcase” fills the central void with a mirror finish that turns the volume into a sculpture (as seen on the photos and on the showcase elevations below), while housing different programs that benefit from the arrange of the boxes, such as the auditorium, meeting rooms and showrooms.

Charred Cedar House © Noriyuki Yano

Architects: Tetsuya Nakazono / naf architect & design
Location: Hiroshima, Japan
Engineer: Kenji Nawa / NAWAKENJI-M
Site area: 172.55 sqm
Building area: 61.38 sqm
Total floor area: 114.50 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Noriyuki Yano / Nacasa & Partners

Charred Cedar House Front © Noriyuki Yano / Nacasa & Partners

CONCEPT

The construction site is located in a district where many traditional sake breweries preserve good old Japanese street with plaster and charred cedar walls. In winter, during sake brewing season, a cloud of steam comes out from red brick chimneys of the breweries and the scent of sake wafts in the air. “Charred Cedar House” stands in such neighborhood.

Charred Cedar House inside © Noriyuki Yano / Nacasa & Partners

STRUCTURE

If living in the suburbs could ever be considered edgy, it would have to be in an unusual, unique and uncanny house such as this one. Odd angles abound, mixed materials define variegated spaces and above it all looms an incredible cantilevered bridge supporting gathering, living, cooking and eating spaces designed by Maddison Architects with views out in all directions.

Sleeping, bathing and more private programmatic activities are contained in concrete masonry section that is nearly the conceptual opposite of the bridge portion – buried, thick, heavy and solid. This section contrasts with the wide-open windowed expanses of the upper level, pierced holes at strategic points let in light and allow outside peaks only selectively.

The finishing materials come to complete the overall design in a spectacular mix of color and texture, bringing a modern stylish atmosphere to the site.

seen at dornob

There is something about the high-desert prairie lands that indeed seems to invite the long lines and simple naturalistic materials that date back to Frank Lloyd Wright and the so-called Prairie Style approach to designing and building homes. In this case, however, novel techniques and new materials make this modern desert residence a kind of bridge between the stylistic past and a more sustainable future.

The interplay of void and solid, spaces and planes, that define this structure (designed by Pique) are more then merely modernist affectations in section and plan – they are a means of blocking out excess solar energy while capturing natural light, leading it all the way to the basement of the building. These more contemporary, rational and linear moves are also balanced by rustic colors and rusted materials.