Located north of Berlin, the Uckermark region is renowned for its natural beauty and eco-friendly farms, which supply high-quality products to the Berlin area. Recently, it has also become a retreat for artists and creatives seeking an escape from the busy city. This project began with the planned restructuring of a small farm, where each building is set to be restored in stages. The existing family house, the only non-original building, was built atop an ancient ruin and followed a cost-effective construction standard before being demolished. AAS carefully removed the modern layers, preserving only the historic remnants of the walls. Thick concrete walls were then poured over these fragments to form a new structure. One large opening was created on each facade, offering a distinctive sense of scale and transforming the house’s appearance. The windows, which also function as doors, are strategically placed to maximise natural light in every room. Inside, the layout is open and fluid, with no interior doors. The space features a spacious living area with an open kitchen, and a staircase leading to two bedrooms.

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La entrada The 4-window House se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The project proposes the rehabilitation of an agricultural warehouse, reprogrammed as a “senior” cohabitation. In order to accommodate two family units in the same building, the lifestyle of each individual family was studied. This allowed us to plan and reorganize the spaces according to each use, specific to the degree of collectivization required at each moment. Individual, couple, collective and even neighborhood spaces were incorporated.

In order to solve the scale transition from warehouse to cohousing, the multiplicity of use spaces, and the gradients of privacy, the project proposes the insertion of a central equipped block. This new element permits the reconfiguration of the pre-existing open space into multiple subspaces, which are distributed both in plan and in section.

La entrada Conversion of a agricultural warehouse to senior cohousing se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The structure of an old house in ruins is the departing point to build a new inhabited space. Instead of imposing a new logic over the ruin, the project intensifies the spatial conditions of the existing structure. The ruin is not understood as something to be preserved, but as a repertoire of operative strategies that emerged by the effects of abandonment. Its condition is understood as matter that generates the ideas to rebuild itself internalizing in that way architecture biggest fear: decay.

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La entrada Casa Jardín se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The Lot 8 project is a collaboration between BC architects & studies & materials, Assemble and Atelier LUMA. The ‘Magasin Electrique’ is a 2100m2 former 19th century train depot building, and has been renovated to provide a new workspace for the design and research laboratory Atelier Luma, including workshops for timber, metal, ceramic, and textile, alongside dedicated algae and mycelium laboratories, meeting rooms, desk and production space, library and resource centre.

Atelier LUMA is the design research program of LUMA Foundation. Based in the Parc des Ateliers in Arles, France, since 2017, it is deeply connected to its geographic and cultural environment: the Camargue region, the Alpilles mountains, and the Crau plains.

“Through investigating the resources and know-how in our bioregion, and connecting different fields of expertise, Atelier Luma develops local solutions for ecological, economic, and social transition”.

La entrada Lot 8 Design and Research Laboratory se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The village of O Fieiro is located in the natural environment of Mount Pindo, known as the Celtic Olympus, a granite rock formation from which all the traditional Galician houses in the area emerge.

The project considers the rehabilitation of a small animal stable, a 1920 farmhouse built with stone walls of large, well-arranged, granite ashlars, 70-80 cm thick, with a two-sloped roof made of fibre cement sheeting on a prestressed concrete joist structure.
The original farmhouse had an access corridor located in the centre, separating two spaces, in one of them the stable for cattle was located, while in the other there was a kitchen with a stone oven and a niche where the sink was placed, under the window. This space led to an upper floor, now demolished, through a stone staircase, where the bedrooms were situated.

La entrada O Fieiro House se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The timber frame was built using green larch: a locally sourced, fast growing softwood milled at Graythwaite Estate sawmill, pegged together with oak dowels hewn from locally forested oak. Eliminating the need for concrete footings, the structure sits on a dry-stone wall plinth, built under the guidance of John Atkinson using a technique which is ubiquitous across the Lake District for everything from farm walls to fine houses. Uplift on the eaves of the structure is resisted by a series of boulders from the quarry at Broughton Moor chained to the rafters, and embedded into the earth banks either side of the structure. A gate of irregular timber was provided by renowned oak swill craftsman Owen Jones MBE.

La entrada Rock Hut se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

This is the house-studio of my friend Clara Cebrian. Clara is an artist and does not like overly designed things. She wanted something ‘like Ron Weasley’s house’; something that could adapt to the needs that appear over time. The project, therefore, had to provide a basis for life to happen and be ‘almost nothing’. We work on a 10x10m warehouse with a gable roof held by two steel rafters, a facade with two windows and a door. For ‘almost nothing’ to work as ‘almost anything’ it seemed that nothing should be very tied. We were sure about three things: that the space must be understood as what it is – a square -, that we had to use a kitchen that Clara had bought for sale, and that the downspouts were where they were and were immovable.

We decided to make a ‘covert wall’; a front where we could place the kitchen (everyone always wants to be in the kitchen). The kitchen would become the useful protagonist of the space, and behind it, the bathroom and facilities would hide. The wall passes under the belt of the trusses, allowing the warehouse to be understood as it is, and prevents doors from opening directly over the space (especially the bathroom).

La entrada Topo’s Shed Workspace and Housing se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

33 years old, a reinforced concrete building of 3 floors with a basement has been renovated as an office and residence.

The surrounding area has been developed with bookbinding and printing-related factories. At the beginning of the building, the lower half of the building was used as a printing factory as well and the upper half was used as a residence. About 10 years ago, the whole building was converted into a house and used by a second owner. At this time the third owner renovated it again.

In this renovation, we did not design everything from the beginning but proceeded with dismantling. The elements of the past that emerged from the present finishes gave us great inspiration to design. The process of design can be said, “rediscovery”.

La entrada House in Myougadani se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

‘Tondo’ is a footbridge that connects two buildings of the Belgian Federal Parliament in the center of Brussels. The bridge was explicitly designed as a spatial element, rather than a technical solution. Named after the tradition of the ‘Tondo’, a circular Renaissance painting, the bridge is shaped like a ring, and suspended between the two buildings.

A generous walk around an enclosed outer space is not simply a corridor, but also functions as a meeting space. At the same time, the ‘detour’ allows the height difference of 90cm between the floors of the two buildings to be bridged using a single, wheelchair-accessible slope of 4%.

Towards the city, the bridge shows itself as a ‘closed’ element, in the tradition of, for example, the Bridge of Sighs. Coated with mirrored panels, it reflects the 18th-century facade of the Parliament building and its recent addition across the street. Upon closer look, the glazed opening reveals a subtle view of the passages between the two buildings. Structurally, the bridge is a stiff disc, and its floor hangs from the roof with a minimal presence of structure: a near ephemeral pavilion between the buildings.

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La entrada Tondo Bridge se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The Kyneton House is defined by its sense of singularity; both as an architectural element within its local context and in the spatial qualities of each room within.

The design process began with a single wall gesture, a repeating brickwork cup. This element was arranged to define the boundaries of the home and of the individual rooms, with the recess of each providing a nesting place for seating, kitchen, study etc. Always returning inwards, this repeating motif formed a thickness to the home’s exterior, providing a deepened reveal to every opening.

The celebration of material texture is balanced with the precisely folded, ceiling voids that define and light each of the spaces in the home.

Our ambition for the house is for it to act as a reference point to the passing of time, becoming a canvas for the change of light and the theatre of seasonal change occurring outside.

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La entrada Kyneton House se publicó primero en Global Spaces.