Botaniq news » 2011 » September

16 09/11
06:49

Paraty House, Brazil














 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a legend which says that the region of the colonial city of Paraty and Angra dos Reis (between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro) has 365 islands, one for each day of the year.

 

The building consists of two boxes of reinforced concrete, fixed connected on the mountainside of one of these islands like two modern prisms between the large colossal stones of the Brazilian coast.

 

The house finds balance in the topography of the land, creating an extensive open doorway and living space in the practically untouched nature.

 

The residents arrive by boat. After stepping out onto the sand a metallic bridge positioned over a crystal-lined reflecting pool leads to a set of stairs connecting to the lower volume. This volume contains the living room, kitchen and service area. The continual internal area has a 27m span and huge glass windows to take advantage of the view of the sea.

 

The same entrance stairs also lead to the upper volume that houses the bedrooms. In the front part of the house, retractile panels of eucalyptus sticks protect the bedrooms from the sun. The areas that face the mountain have small internal patios with zenithal lighting, and use exposed reinforced concrete, which grants a striking texture to the walls.

 

The entire top of the house is covered with terraces, used as observation decks for the residents, and as a garden for sculptures, medicinal plants and edible herbs.
Architect: Marcio Kogan, studio mk27
Photographer: Nelson Ko


09 09/11
12:25

The Art of Clean Up

Swiss artist Ursus Wehrli is releasing a new book on The Art of Clean Up, where he takes everyday scenes of disorder and rearranges them into neat rows, sorted by different attributes such as color, size, shape, and type, etc. Some of the preview images from the book seem borderline OCD, such as the pine branch that has been ordered by the needle size– others are on such a huge scale that it almost seems laughable, as if a giant had come along and re-organized a lawn full of towels and people.
The book is a follow-up to his previous Tidying Up Art books, where Wehrli used to “tidy up” famous artworks, such as Van Gogh’s room or Botticelli’s beach.

08 09/11
00:19

A Cardboard Pavilion for Shanghai

This digitally-designed cardboard pavilion has been exposed at the 3D paperArt exhibition in Shanghai. It is the work of the final project of the Master Advanced Study group at the Department of Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) at the ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

 
The pavilion features a design composed of variable truncated cones. While maintaining their individual diversity, the elements cooperate together to achieve common goals such as overall stability, shape, illumination, views and spatial quality.

 

The cones were manufactured using corrugated cardboard in 28 layers, each of which was cut, glued and labelled with a computer-controlled machine. Weatherproofing is provided by a shrink foil, a packing material like all the other that are constituting the pavilion.

 

For all steps, from design, production, logistics, packing in Zurich to shipping and assembly in Shanghai, the process was implemented and optimized by means of self-made computer programs. By intelligently nesting and packing the cones the amount of material used, the production time and the shipping volume were significantly reduced.

 

The experiment is intended to demonstrate how architects can use CAAD to customize a design process. It was possible on one side to overcome logistical and fabrication constraints with integrated solutions, and on the other side to exploit the potential of digital design on the aesthetical level.

 

project website: http://packed-pavilion.blogspot.com