Petting Farm by 70F

The retreat is a well-crafted structure, with all the design process focus on sustainability, low-impact and off-the-grid design mandate to the site which would precede the design and construction of the house.

Petting Farm
Design Team: 70F Architecture
Location: den Uyl Park, Almere, the Netherlands
Cost: € 150.000
Status: 2008

In the 'den Uyl' park there used to be one petting farm, but it burned down in the early 80's, leaving only its concrete foundation. In 2005, 70F Architecture was commissioned by the municipality of Almere to design a new petting farm on the exact location and the remaining foundation. The building was finally built using almost only sponsored money, and finished late 2008.

The architects designed a wooden box with an open facade system for the upper half of the building, allowing the wind to ventilate the whole farm continuously. Half of the building is stable; the other half consists of toilets, storage and on the second floor an office and storage. The stable itself has no second floor. As you walk lengthways through the building, you will pass the animals that are contained to the left and to the right behind fences. There are no doors in the building, but there are six shutters, two for the public on the short ends of the building and four for the animals, two on either long side of the building. These shutters will open manually or automatically in the morning, reacting on the upcoming sun, as they will close again at the end of the day, when the sun goes down. The animals will easily learn to be inside again on time, if they like. At night, the building becomes a light beacon in the park. One could say that the box, a building extensively reduced in aesthetic violence, wakes up and goes to sleep every day.






via 70f

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St. Mary of the Angels Chapel Mecanoo Architecten

With its impressive roof, its golden ceiling and wave-like ”moving” wall, the new Rotterdam chapel exhibits the sensual elements of the baroque. The intimate inner room has an aura of contemplative stillness and austerity. The stone foundation walls of the old neo-Gothic chapel form the pedestal for the new building – as a ”footprint” so to speak.

St. Mary of the Angels Chapel

Design Team: Mecanoo Architecten

Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands

Status: Completion July 2001

The Catholic ”St. Lawrence” cemetery was designed by Dutchman H.J. van der Brink and opened in 1865. As in the ”campo santo”, a sacred Italian cemetery, the chapel is situated in the middle of the grounds in the centre of a star-shaped system of paths connecting the graves. However, van der Brink’s chapel, designed in the neo-Gothic style, was unable to withstand the poor soil conditions of the location, and in 1963 the old building was replaced with a new one. The new chapel was erected on top of the original cellar vaults in the form of a copper covered cone. When the old vaults were no longer able to bear the burden, Mecanoo Architecten was commissioned to design the ”chapel of their dreams” in November 1998.

What is the proper form for a new, twenty-first century chapel in a nineteenth-century Roman Catholic cemetery in Rotterdam? Mecanoo’s answer is that it should be timeless – a contemporary structure that looks like a jewel case, an extraordinary building like a precious casket, with beautiful light inside and a shaft of light, and a remarkable roof with a heavenly gold ceiling. The chapel should be designed as part of a ceremony, of a journey undertaken, in this last resting place designed as a campo santo. After entering the chapel the ceremony takes place, after which the procession continues through another door. Indoors the atmosphere must always be intimate regardless of the number of people attending. Finally the chapel is built on a site with a history that needs to remain visible.

The chapel consists of a space without any pillars. The organic form inspires meditation: a continuous curving wall without any windows and apparently without doors, raised 70 centimetres above the ground. The wall is deep blue and contains texts from the Requiem mass in many languages, alluding to the fact that the cemetery is located in a multicultural neighbourhood. The entrance and the exit situated opposite one another form part of the wall and are executed as pivoted doors. The roof floats like a slightly folded sheet of paper over the structure. The golden ceiling is lit from within by a lamp. Light enters the building both through the sheet of glass at the plinth and through the strip under the roof. A shaft of light enters the chapel through an opening in the roof, and is accentuated when incense is burned. In the floor, inlaid stone elements indicate the spots for the congregation and for the priest. The chapel is crowned with a modest bell tower.

The chapel is located centrally in the cemetery. Two previous chapels have stood on this site – a neo-Gothic structure of 1880 and a pyramid-shaped building of 1963. Both structures collapsed due to poor foundations in the soft soil. The new chapel has been given a solid foundation within the bounds of the original chapel. This results in a chapel with a palimpsest-like nature. The ground plan of the first chapel becomes visible in the soil by exposing remains of its wall. The soil is as though it were scratched away after which the new chapel has been planted on its surface.

via Mecanoo Architecten

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Villa Chabrey by GD architectes

Sculptured in wood and fitting in with the topography of the orchards, this house reminds the world of a hangar and of a barn. It also preserves the rural characteristics of the surroundings and the organisation of the surface area around the positioning of the space it follows the distinctive typology of a farmhouse.

Villa Chabrey

Design Team: GD Architectes (GeninascaDelefortrie SA Architectes FAS SIA)

Location: Chabrey, Switzerland

Status: Completion 2006

The presence of the cemetery, gardens, meadows, pastures & the lake constituting this site overlooking rolling Chabrey is a living testimony to the history of this village. In this context sensitive location, a modern house has to be build without disturb the balances involved.

Villa Chabrey is an interpretation given to the particular specifications desired, its shape and its materialization. Indeed, this house maintains the typology old farm and proposes its report to the field, the play of its roof and by abstraction of its envelope, a term referring to both the world of shed, barn and landscape.

The house is organized around a central space-kitchen, dining-distributing respectively private area - bedroom, dressing room, office, the board friends, living room and indoor pool. If, in contrast to the traditional cuisine (the fire), distribution space allows a perception of a whole house and offers immediate relation to the landscape, other parts have a more confidential, both in size and framed by their connection to the outside.

This house has two registers of expression-one, outdoor-rough; the other interior-Precious-. This shift is the desire to perpetuate the character of the place where it is part and respond to the desires of the client.

via GD Architectes

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Southend Pier by White arkitekter

A key element of the proposed design is to make sure that the people of Southend use the Pier and take it into their heart. The Pier Head should be a vibrant place filled with activities with a walkable and bikeable street with attractive destinations located every 500 metres.

Southend Pier

Design Team: White Arkitekter, Price & Myers

Location: Essex, south east England, UK

Status: winning design

Teamed up with Price & Myers, White Arkitekter from Sweden won the prestigious competition to redevelop Southend Pier situated on the English Channel and the mouth of the Thames.

Southend Pier was in 2007 voted Pier of the Year and is the longest pier in the world. An iconic pier with its own distinctive character, history and people. One of the main attractions of the Pier is the view of the sea, and in particular, the feeling of being on the sea.

The Pier will be an extension of the High Street’s urban fabric onto the sea. White Arkitekter have proposed a series of destinations starting at Priory Park and ending at the Pier Head, transforming the pleasure pier into an urban pier. The Pier Head designed as a public space functioning like a modern Agora, part theatre, part art space, acting as a vibrant meeting place for both the people of Southendon-Sea and visitors.

The main feature of the new Pier Head design will be an open air theatre with a terraced platform that will create lee, view point and seating for the audience. The outdoor theatre, with the Southend coastline as backdrop, has the capacity of 500 spectators. New buildings - a Culture Centre and a Restaurant - will be built offshore next to the existing Pier Head, creating a balanced enclosure and populated edges around the theatre space.

”The dramatic curving shapes of the buildings are derived from the wind and the waves themselves. This public, yet enclosed, space will be perfectly integrated into the scenery. It will be sculpted by wind and wave”, says landscape architect Niels de Bruin.

Materials will be low maintenance and long-lasting. In this specific setting we prefer materials with an untreated natural finish such as timber, corten steel and glass. These materials will add personality and warmth to the elegantly shaped buildings. The aggressive maritime environment is extremely hard on most traditional building materials and they have to be considered carefully in the design process.  All new buildings will be self-sufficient. Energy efficient design and renewable energy sources including wind turbines for electricity, natural ventilation and sea water heat pump, will make it a carbon neutral development.

via White Arkitekter

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