The House Cast in Liquid Stone by Spasm Design. The House Cast in Liquid Stone ‘conjures a cool sense of refuge and calm’ its architects at Spasm Design say. The second home in Khopoli, India is sited on a basalt outcrop and is made of a composite of the material it sits on. The home serves as a sanctuary against the region’s stormy climate, which is generally hot and has a monsoon season from March to July. The house is ‘a refuge which traps the views, sun, rain and air and becomes one with the cliff edge it stands on.’ The cast house is built on the premise of being at one with its surroundings. Furniture pieces have similar forms to the house – long, rectangular and horizontal, emphasising leisure with a focus on observing panoramic views.
The house alternates between giving rain protection with roof overhangs and completely exposing different parts of the house – like the bathrooms and staircase – to the sky. There is a sense of understated drama in the simple materials and exquisite views at the Khopoli house. Hidden Orchestra by Alice Labourel. Architecture graduate Alice Labourel presents a ballet school based on creating physical reality from perceived reality.
The student had a defined site in mind – a spot on the backs of the Los Angeles River – that adapts to its real surroundings and the activities that occur within the building. A combination of hand-drawings and computer renderings describe a fantastic building in elaborate detail. The resulting design is complex and intricate due to the depth of Labourel’s concept. Drawing on a variety of influences – including cinema, nature and movement – the ballet school is affected by three timescales: the school’s schedule, the time it takes for a train to pass by the building and the flow of the adjacent river. The river has the biggest impact on the building. Most-often empty, the waterway rises once a year due to heavy rainfall.
The idea is that the building would store the abundance of water to use throughout the year. Alicelabourel.com. AnArchitecture. Suckerpunchdaily / Pinterest. Chapel Tree of Life / Cerejeira Fontes Arquitectos. Architects: Cerejeira Fontes Arquitectos Location: Braga, Portugal Design Team: António Jorge Fontes, Asbjörn Andresen, André Fontes Photography: Nelson Garrido The intervention strategy results on the insertion of a Chapel at the Seminary of St. James. It is a volume released into the antechamber of the Seminar which takes for its centrality. The design of this project-”body” wants this to be a unique structure, balanced and visible, making a piece with this exceptional presence within the building. After outlining the vision of the sacred space that surrounds this body, we look for a proposal to absorb the religious character of the set, creating spaces and environments that promote a spirit of inwardness, reflection and retreat thus maintaining the same language.
The design of the new volume is articulated to the pre-existence, creating some openings and new forms of perception of the surrounding area. The space surrounding the new volume is assumed as a time of transition. Tverrfjellhytta / Snøhetta. Architect: Snøhetta Oslo AS Location: Hjerkinn, Dovre Municipality, Norway Project Team: Knut Bjørgum landscape architect (Design Team Leader), Kjetil T. Thorsen (Partner in charge, Principal architect), Erik Brett Jacobsen, Margit Tidemand Ruud, Rune Grasdal, Martin Brunner (Architects) Heidi Pettersvold. (Interior Architect) Project Area: 900 sqf Project Year: 2011 Photographs: Ketil Jacobsen and diephotodesigner.de The Norwegian Wild Reindeer Centre Pavilion is located at Hjerkinn on the outskirts of Dovrefjell National Park, overlooking the Snøhetta mountain massif. The 90m2 building is open to the public and serves as an observation pavilion for the Wild Reindeer Foundation educational programmes.
Background Dovrefjell is a mountain range that forms a barrier between the norther and southern parts of Norway. Architectural idea This unique natural, cultural and mythical landscape has formed the basis of the architectural idea. Text provided by Snøhetta Oslo AS. NAÇO architectures.