The Chorizo House is one of the Buenos Aires’s most common typologies. Mostly developed at the beginning of the 20th century they are defined by an exterior corridor that distributed a series of separate rooms in enfilade. Each of the rooms houses a specific function and organized the lives of the immigrants that arrived by masses during the 1900s. When we were asked to destroy and old Casa Chorizo to build a new house, we proposed to keep the house structure and make architecture by subtracting material, not driven by a nostalgic desire of preservation but with the positivist intention to transcend its spatial qualities.

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La entrada Chorizo House se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

Selected as one of the “historical and cultural villages” in Fujian Province, Shangping Village has been sustained by its agricultural tradition and Hakka culture. In Shangping, most of the villagers have the surname of Yang, who are the descendants of Captain Yang Zhen from Han Dynasty. Shangping Village has a complete rural feng shui pattern where two streams run around the village and gather at Shuikou area (the water gap, village entrance). There are many provincial-level cultural heritages such as the Tai Fu Tai Mansion, the Yang’s Ancestral Temple, Shezumiao Shrine, Zhaogongmiao Temple, etc. According to the legend, the great scholar Zhu Xi used to give lectures in Shangping and to leave with treasured calligraphy. Therefore, Shangping has a reputation for “literary village surrounded by water “. By October 2017, the Shuikou Area has been completed; Two month later in December, Yang’s School Area and Tai Fu Tai Mansion Area have finished renovation works.

Yang’s School Area is located at the intersection of the two streams in Shang Ping Village where two main trails dispatch from the entrance. That’s the reason of being important geographically. According to historical legend, Mr. Zhu Xi, a national historian and educationalist, has lectured in Yang’s School and created great poems as well as calligraphy here. The design of this part is to transform historical site into a tourist spot and unveil the great history of Shang Ping Village.

La entrada Yang’s School Area se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The house stands in the meadow on the edge of buildings and agriculture. The chance to still be part of the landscape with the last building plot – i.e. to live in it – was a determining factor in the design. Similar to the well-known “hay harp”, the building stands in the landscape – characterized by a clear structure and “lightness”.

The psychologist couple, who like to travel in a camper van, wanted a retreat with a connection to the surrounding nature. A one-room house was built on 65 square meters, which opens completely to the landscape to the east, south and west and, on the northern side of the slope, accommodates sleeping alcoves, bathrooms, toilets and cloakrooms in a 140 cm wide layer of space. The one-room is divided into a living, cooking and dining area by furniture and continues to the east and west onto a generously covered terrace. Superstructure and technical equipment are reduced to a minimum and all surfaces are made of untreated spruce wood. The installation cables are bundled compactly in a wall or, where necessary, routed “on wood” – a wood stove serves as the heating source.

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La entrada House in a meadow se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The placing of the new sports hall clarifies the outdoor settings around the existing school grounds. The sports hall creates together with the school building a clearly defined space with break and village square. The hard court and lawn for P.E. lie directly opposite on the west side and belong spatially to the lawn landscape “floor mat”. The covered outdoor area marks the main entrance and creates the face towards the school site. The middle section with the room for gymnastic equipment on the ground floor and the changing rooms on the first floor arrange the square floorplan structurally. Die sports hall and multi-purpose hall are each lit along its length side. The chosen sturdy materialization of the facade made of pre-fabricated concrete elements takes credit in this exposed situation in the public zone. The play of light and shadow due to the ripped concrete elements has the effect of an ever-changing volume throughout the course of the day. The front surface of the ribs is ennobled by means of sanding. The opaque band window glazing provides the ideal cast-shadow-free exposure to light for the hall.

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La entrada Sport Facilities se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

A home and shop in an area just to the north of the center of Kyoto where such mixed use is very common. Given the environment surrounding the property, the building opens to the north side, while keeping the main structural elements on the south side, where it is unlikely for the environment to change in the future. The design uses a basic module of a “fishbone” frame with ト-shaped wooden trusses on the south side and one twice as wide, alternating to form a double grid. By using the trusses extending to the north as boundaries to create the second story and mezzanine, given the extended height of the first story, the residence, store, workshop and café were formed as separate spaces, each with its own character.

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La entrada House a / Shop b se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

This expansion and renovation project is located in a residential neighborhood of Palma with ground-floor houses and patios. The need to extend the original home on the ground floor, maintaining the original load-bearing wall structure, makes it necessary to adopt a light structural solution such as wood.

CRAFTS

From the beginning, we considered the project as an investigation along two parallel lines. On the one hand, the possibilities of prefabricating wooden elements with numerical control cutting (CNC), and on the other, an investigation into the crafts still alive on the island, such as clay and marés.

We start from an autonomous and decontextualized structure, anchored to a “base” or “pre-existence” for which we “ideate” and manufacture a prefabricated wooden system, starting from 244x122cm poplar plywood panels. Here the structure gives us the opportunity to investigate and test a wooden prefabrication structural system that uses the language of its manufacturing process. Combining the elements of this system defined by the capabilities of CNC cutting, this system serves as a starting point and can be reproduced in other types of buildings.

The project explores and incorporates local materials and artisans using local products with different degrees of industrialization. For the interior flooring, we worked hand in hand with Huguet, a traditional manufacturer of hydraulic tiles in Mallorca, designing a large continuous mosaic of tiles with smooth joints in the areas where it was necessary to replace the original flooring. Special terracotta slivers from Miquel Soler, a traditional manufacturer from Felanitx, have been used in various parts of the façade and the pool.

La entrada Plywood House se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

Right from the start, the design process was shaped by the search for the adequate answer to the speed and complexity of the contemporary social developments.House Schmieder in Fraxern is completely built in monolithic concrete. The 8×8 meter cube stands separated on a slightly inclined meadow interspersed with cherry trees and is accessed from a small road via a filigree steel bridge. Cooking, living and sleeping areas are spread over three floors and connected by an open staircase. Exposed concrete, raw steel and silver fir are the only materials to find. The external walls are made of 50cm thick isolating concrete. All surfaces are untreated. Any floor construction was waived, the concrete surface was only polished. The construction gave the opportunity to activate the concrete core with a solar heating system, only supported by a centrally located wood stove.

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La entrada House Schmieder Fraxern se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The Casa de Armeiro rehabilitation project sought to preserve, as far as possible, all the vernacular characteristics of the building.
In this way, the original geometry of the house was maintained, and the intervention was carried out by adapting the housing program focused on the current requirements of health and functionality to the existing compartments, this limitation being the greatest obstacle to the development of the project and the work.
To recover the space, traditional construction techniques were used, such as: lime coatings on stone masonry, terracotta or stone floors, and most of the carpentry was maintained, being intervened occasionally.

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La entrada Casa de Armeiro se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

Mountains surround the house in the south, covered with thick forests. The house is located in an ancient mountain forest in Wuyi County, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province. The village maintains complete features from old inhabitants in this area, with buildings scatters in different altitudes by the mountain line and dense trees with a history of over one hundred years at the entrance. The book house sits not far from the square at the entrance, beside which are well-preserved courtyard houses made in rammed earth. The old cowshed used to locate in the yard but was removed after it collapsed.

The book house aims to create a serene reading space that clams people down, thus attracting more young people and children to return to the mountains. It also provides a colorful and quiet place so that children and the elderly can feel freedom and happiness in this house.

Bring the space and the village closer. One of our initial thoughts is to spare room for the villagers, which also brings an intuitive feeling. In the first floor of the book house, there is an overhead semi-outdoor open space, and ten structural columns hold the entire house. The closed spaces are on the second floor, connected to the outside with an outdoor staircase. There is only a tiny water bar on the first floor for water and beverages, the other places are totally open for villagers to drink, chat, and for kids to play. The open space connects all the possible activities.

La entrada Mountain House in Mist se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The project involves the Belgian artist Stief Desmet’s painting and sculpting studio. On the street side you will find the family home, flanked on the left by a narrow brick garage. On the right side there is a lower studio and studio that no longer meets the expectations of the artist who creates ever larger sculptures. The site is characterized by organically grown buildings that vary greatly in terms of materials and finish. The new atelier consists of a primarily double-height brick volume, partly embraced by lower secondary buildings.

The primary volume has a symmetrical floor plan that aspires peace and serenity. The sober but brutal materialization supports the function that it includes. Both narrow vertical gate doors vary in width and give the opportunity to realize large sculptures. The corner window forms a place within a place that is a resting point within the large space. The study area is located at the back with a view of the vast nature.

La entrada Studio SDS se publicó primero en Global Spaces.