Amazing Architecture by Kotaro Ide from Japan

Architect:  Kotaro Ide // ARTechnic Japan

Location:  Karuizawa, Nagano // JAPAN

Project Type:  Private Residence

Assistants: Moriyuki Fujihara, Ruri Mitsuyasu, Takashi Mototani (former member), Kenyu Fujii

Collaborator: Manami Ide (designer of customized metal work)

Structural Engineer: Naomi Kitayama / NAO

Mechanical engineer: Hiroshi Nakayama / TNA

Electrical Engineer: Jyunetsu Satou / EPS

Contractor: Kenji Kusunoki / GIKAKU

Date of Completion:  2008

Structure:  Reinforced Concrete

Site Area:  1,171 square meters

Total Floor Area:  329 square meters

Photographer:  Nacasa & Partners Inc.

Interesting architectural design approaches, are always interesting no matter when they were presented for the first time.  One such interesting architectural design is the “Shell” residence by Japanese Architect, Kotaro Ide of Artechnic.  The project concluded its works in 2008; the sculptural shell-like structure was built in the forest of Karuizawa, located in theNagano prefecture of Japan.

This large two-storey shell-shaped structure makes itself distinct from the surrounding caves and rocks, and it is clearly not a part of nature.  However, its organic shape seems subtle within the forest, and the reinforced cement structure becomes one and harmonizes itself with the landscape.  The principals desired a residence which will be occupied as a vacation home, with frequent visits and to be used for many years to come.  Whatever the design of the residence would be it had to co-exist with nature.  “The existence of the structure depends on its power to endure nature.”  A clear distinction of the spaces [structure vs. nature] upgrades the quality of the residence as a shelter; the house will be sheltered from nature and utilize what nature can offer.  Moreover, with such a design the residence will be used often and integrate through its use with the surroundings.

The interior architectural design of the residence follows the exterior form of the house; the walls are curved and have not been straightened.  Instead features and furniture within the residence have been custom-made to meet the design requirements of the original structure.  The architects paid careful attention to the design details for the comfort and the performance level of the residence. 

Cherry hardwood flooring is used throughout the residence, while oak has been used for some furniture which makes a lovely contrast with the flooring.  Many furniture items have been custom designed as the shape and the structure of the walls makes it hard for regular furniture to fit in ideally.  The communal spaces have been given use on the ground floor while the private spaces such as the bedrooms are located on the upper level.

The low temperatures in Karuizawa along with the increased humidity levels make for a harsh climate.  As a result many houses in the area with a traditional structure and construction are facing overwhelming decaying problems.  With this in mind the architect came up with a large shell structure which floats above the ground and is constructed by reinforced concrete.  Taking example from other villas of the nearby area which have not been used for many years, Kotaro Ide tried avoiding the common structure and materials used in the construction.  The use of reinforced concrete for the residence will assist the residence in protecting itself from the high humidity levels and the cold.

A custom-made floor heating system minimizes the loss of heat from within the house, and assisted in creating large openings.  This custom-made heating system works as a cold-draft blocking system which enables the luxury of enjoying a hefty amount of space with large openings.  The system integrates itself within the architectural form.  “The central control system enables all mechanical and electrical equipments to be managed by three buttons. In addition, the biometrics lockage and security system will reduce anxiety and stress over house safety management.”

The exterior of the “Shell” residence is wrapped in the shell-like concrete structure finished with a penetrative sealer for concretes, which contrasts with the green landscape.  Deck wood is used on the patio, while a small amphitheater-like structure has been created in the center of the house around a full-grown tree.  Large double glazed openings allow for uninterrupted views of the nature from within the house.

Overall, the Shell residence has a simple aesthetic design which blends itself well to the traditional Japanese landscape, as it creates a balance between the futuristic man-made structure and the environment which surrounds it. The entire project took more than eighteen months to realize and two and a half years to complete.

Circle hospital/ Foster & Partners

It looks like a five-star-hotel, but Norman Foster's Circle hospital in Bath could revolutionise patient care.

The Circle hospital in Bath designed by Foster & Partners. Photograph: Nigel Young/Foster and Partners

"We wanted to put hospitality into hospitals" says Ali Parsa, the eloquent, confident managing partner of health company Circle, and "a night in a hospital costs more than in a five-star hotel, so why shouldn't people get a similar experience?" Indeed, the first reaction on entering Circle's new hospital outside Bath is that you've entered a hotel by mistake. There's a cheery brown-uniformed concierge, a scent of non-hospital food, and a clean-lined, light-filled, stone-paved modern interior with large cylinders of gauzy cloth hanging, like giant lamp shades, from the ceiling.
The last space I saw like this was the lobby of the Shore Club hotel on Miami Beach, also hung with gauzy cylinders (and whose bedrooms, as it happens, were so relentlessly minimal that they resembled those in a sanatorium). It's a comparison that would make Parsa happy. Circle's aim, according to one of his medical partners, is to "give people good health, not an experience of illness".
In most cities, if you look for the most lumpen, ungainly, charmless building, hospitals from the 1960s and 1970s will be near the top of the list. Gartnavel general in Glasgow, the Royal Liverpool, Addenbrooke's in Cambridge, the Royal Free and Guy's in London, to name a random few, all follow the same type. They are silos for the sick; multi-level garages for parking the unwell. Inside they are more like the interiors of aircraft carriers, vast unwindowed complexes linked by bewildering networks of corridors. You might have thought some decency and dignity would be suited to places where people are born and die, but the makers of these hospitals didn't seem to agree.
Places supposed to make you feel better start off by making you feel worse, and there are reasons, or excuses, for this. It's hard to justify a pound spent on an architectural nicety that might otherwise go on medical equipment, and hospital design is framed by guidelines about hygiene and efficiency to a greater degree than almost any other building type. If there were a contest for budget between aesthetics and saving lives, saving lives would naturally win, and never mind that administrative bureaucracy is rarely presented with the same challenge.
Yet, according to another Circle medical partner, Jonathan Boulton, people are healthier if they are relaxed. Their heart rate is lower, he says, they bleed less in operations, require less aggressive anaesthetisation, and are more likely to respond well to their treatment: "All the really bad outcomes tend to come with anxious patients." Good design can contribute to people feeling relaxed. For this reason, Circle hired Foster & Partners to design their Bath hospital, and are getting other celebrated architects, including the practices of Richard Rogers and Michael Hopkins, to design other hospitals now in the pipeline.
Circle is a business, the first of its kind, in which medical staff are partners, in order to "give them more control". It is planning other centres in places including Plymouth, Reading and Edinburgh. Its income comes mainly from private patients, either on insurance schemes or paying for themselves, but it also treats National Health patients, and expects to do so more.
Ali Parsa is a former investment banker with Goldman Sachs, and his approach is bracingly business-like – image consultants were brought in to create the Circle brand, "a sign of inclusion, continuity and perfection". The Bath hospital is located, practically but unsentimentally, in a business park, next to Audi and Mercedes Benz dealerships, albeit on the edge of rolling countryside.
Circle's aims include "no compromise on clinical outcome", a determination to "change how hospitals are run from the bottom up", and to be "relentless about changing patients' experience". So doctors were allowed to specify exactly the equipment they thought best, and sophisticated systems were installed for managing patient information and the supply of drugs. A chef was brought in from the Michelin-starred country house-hotel and spa, Lucknam Park.

And the gigantic, award-laden practice created by Norman Foster was asked to design their very first hospital building. In recent years, the Foster company has been making headlines with extravagant blooms, like a project in Moscow seemingly made out of multi-storey orange segments, but the Circle commission brought them back to more strait-laced principles of 20 years ago.

The important things, according to Foster partner Spencer de Grey, are "the clarity of the basic diagram, generous space, easy orientation, natural light and natural materials". Corridors were abolished, where possible, and signs kept to a minimum, as the building is sufficiently clear for people to find their way about without them. Much of the floor is in oak, the architects having demonstrated that it would be no less hygienic than the more conventional lino. Lavender grows outside bedroom windows. Operating theatres, usually windowless, are here day-lit.
The impressive thing is that the building does exactly what its makers say it does. It provides obviously good things that somehow get missed out of other hospitals. If we want our surgeons to be wakeful and happy, which I think we do, it can only help if they can see clouds and sky and sunshine when they take a break. And it can only be beneficial if patients are calm rather than bewildered on arrival.
We have learned to be wary of bankers bearing magic potions, but in Parsa's case there is no catch. Personally, I find the relentlessness of Circle's management-speak unnerving, but when they call their Bath building "one of the finest hospitals in Britain", they're right. I also think the idea of a humane architecture could be taken much further – there's still something mechanistic about the way it delivers its good things of light, nature and clarity – but it is still a triumph to have these good things at all.
The government is embarked on a many-billion-pound programme of rebuilding hospitals, under its little-loved private finance initiative. There is every reason to believe it will deliver the same kind of clunkers, with updated styling, that were built over a generation ago. The important question is whether the principles of Circle Bath can be applied to much bigger hospitals, in the less charmed world of the National Health Service.

Parsa and de Grey both insist that they can. They say that they worked to a budget similar to those of NHS hospitals, and that future buildings will be cheaper now they've learned from the experience of their first hospital. They say the principles of their Bath design can be adapted to bigger buildings, and even that the climate of the NHS is changing in favour of their approach. I hope they're right, and that someone in the National Health Service is paying attention.

Copy from: guardian.co.uk

Lord Norman Foster plans to build on the moon



The final frontier: Lord Foster's latest project could see him build on the moon. Photograph: Martin Godwin/Guardian

Having left the capitals of half the world studded with towers, tents, gherkins and globes, the architect Lord Norman Foster is now gazing into the heavens.

His firm, whose most famous projects include the British Museum's Great Court and the rebuilt Reichstag in Germany, is joining a European consortium pitching for the farthest frontier.

The project would be part of the Aurora programme of the European Space Agency.

According to Building Magazine, it would investigate adapting materials found in space for building purposes, using data from the original Apollo moon landing, and new information gathered by robot vehicles on Mars.

Among the objectives would be building permanent structures on the moon.

A spokesman at the London headquarters of Foster and Partners confirmed "there is a tender" but refused to elaborate on Foster's plans to conquer outer space, possibly by adding a nice glass dome.
Foster and Partners is designing the world's first private spaceport for Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which is scheduled to start launching from the New Mexico desert in 2011.


Copy from: guardian.co.uk

Guangzhou Opera House....... Zaha Hadid

Guangzhuo, China - It says something about the state of architecture today that the most alluring opera house built anywhere in the world in decades is in a generic new business district at the outer edge of this city, has no resident company and a second-rate program.

And because this is China, a country that is still undergoing cultural growing pains and whose architectural monuments are mostly being built by unskilled migrant labor, the opera's construction was racked with problems and the quality of some of it is abysmal.

Still, if you're an architecture lover willing to find your way to the building, you probably won't care much. Designe by Zaha Hadid, the new Guangzhou Opera House is gorgeous to look at. It is also a magnificent example of how a single building can redeem a moribund urban environment. Its fluid forms- which have been compared to a cluster of rocks in a riverbed, their surfsces eroded by the water's currents- give sudden focus to the energy around it so that you see the whole area with fresh eyes.

The project is a vindication for Ms. Hadid. In the mid- 1990s, when she was still a rising star with few buildings to her credit, she won an international competition for the design of the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales. It was a breakthrough moment. Yet the government refused to pay for her design and the project was eventually handed over to a lesser talent — an outcome that was devastating for Ms. Hadid and a blow to architectural history.

It’s hard to imagine that the Guangzhou site seemed particularly promising when she first saw it. The project stands at the edge of a vast, featureless park that is the centerpiece of the district’s master plan, about a 15-minute drive from the old city center. An enormous library, a kitschy masonry building intended to resemble an open book, faces it across the park to the east; a 103-story tinted-glass tower stands directly behind it, dwarfing the few people passing by on the streets below.
But the beauty of Ms. Hadid’s design stems partly from the skill with which she knits her forms into this insipid context. Approaching from the park, visitors climb a grand staircase or follow a long ramp that angles diagonally past a small, secondary performance space before arriving at an entry plaza in front of the main hall. The hall’s contoured granite and glass form angles out over the plaza. The smaller hall, about half the size, stands like a big dark boulder slightly back and to the right.
The two structures shape a series of paths through and around the site. Visitors can slip between the halls, for instance, and down a staircase to a narrow roadway in back, or they can follow a wide concrete ramp that splinters off from this path and spirals down to a smaller outdoor plaza framed by a reflecting pool and a few shops. Other paths return you to the park or out to the main street.
For some the plazas will conjure the alienating public spaces found in de Chirico paintings and Antonioni films. And one of Ms. Hadid’s aims over the years has been to rehabilitate those kinds of empty expanses, which went out of favor in the 1970s and ’80s. The difference is in her ability to convey a sense of bodies in motion. The design here is never static; there isn’t the oppressive sense of control found in some classical architecture, with its rigid perpendicular lines. At some points the curves of the paths create a sense of acceleration, propelling you forward; at others they create intimate pockets in which to loiter. Everywhere you turn, unexpected routes open up, so the architecture never feels manipulative.
The experience of openness and possibility continues right into the lobby, an airy, cathedral-like room backed by balconies that curve around the exterior of the 1,800-seat performance space. Light enters through a faceted window that wraps around the front of the lobby; at night there is a view of city’s twinkling skyline.

Stepping into the main hall is like entering the soft insides of an oyster. Seats are arranged in a slightly asymmetrical pattern, enveloping the stage on three sides, with undulant balconies cascading down in front of the stage. The concave ceiling is pierced by thousands of little lights, so that when the main lights dim before a performance it looks as if you’re sitting under the dome of a clear night sky.
The smaller hall, by contrast, is a 440-seat black-box space, the kind of room that can be easily reconfigured to fit the needs of performers and has become an ubiquitous annex to concert halls in recent decades. Here, though, it is surrounded by a billowing, white-plaster foyer that imbues it with a rare touch of sensuality.
But the biggest surprise is the way the various spaces connect. Escalators descend from both lobbies to a lower plaza, which will eventually be lined with a few shops and a cafe. (So far only a piano shop is open.) From there you can ascend the spiraling ramp back to the main plaza, or walk around a reflecting pool that extends toward the park. The sequence of spaces ties the opera house into the park around it, redeeming what until now was little-used space. As important, it establishes the opera house and its grounds as part of the public realm — something that belongs to everyone, not just elite opera fans.

As for the poor construction, many of the 75,000 exterior stone panels were so shoddily made that they are already being replaced. Some plasterwork in the lobbies looks as if it was done by an untrained worker who had never picked up a trowel before. (At one point someone obviously tried to cover up a random piece of pipe that sticks out of a lobby wall by slathering it in more plaster.)

But it may be worth remembering the challenges faced by many of the early Modernists, who pushed construction methods to the very limit in their quest for a new kind of architecture, but were often unable to find anyone with the tools or know-how to follow their lead. This was especially true in those countries that were the most underdeveloped — and that thus embraced modernity with a special fervor.
In some ways China resembles Italy just after the turn of the last century or Russia in the 1920s — countries whose faith in modernity was driven, in part, by insecurities over their own relative backwardness. Seen in that light, the Guangzhou Opera House is a monument to a particular crossroads in China’s history, as well as to Ms. Hadid’s stellar career.

Copy from: The New York Times, Art & Design.

Architectural Competition| Pier Museum Miami 2009 | Academic Competition | Results

1st place
Mario Cottone, Gregorio Indelicato.

2 nd Place

Virginia San Fratello, Ronal Rael.

3rd Place

Abre Etteh, Arman Bahram, Donnie Duncanson, Brian Tobin, James White.

Port and Cruise Service Center International Competition: Shortlist Announced

the shortlist selected for the Kaohsuing Port and Cruise Service center International competition, Located in the City of Kaohsuing in southern Taiwan, ROC (Stage One):

• HMC Group, Inc (USA).



• Asymptote Architecture (USA)



• Jet Architects Inc (Canada)/ CXT Architects Inc. (Canada).



• Ricky Liu & Associates Architect + Planners (ROC) / Takenaka Corporation (Japan).



• Fei & Cheng Associates (ROC) / Reiser+ Umemoto Architecture (USA)