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Imagens que me prendem_Hoje

Slit House_by EASTERN Design Office

This house is made "only" by the slits. there is no window. The wall of 105m lengths with 60 slits surround the site realizes the architectural space in this narrow and long site. No other architecture has ever been realized by such method.
This conceptual sculpturing by the slits is poles apart from glass-heavy contemporary architecture. This method with the slits is our challenge to "window". This challenge is an experiment to innovate a design method of architecture. The concept to compose the architecture just by the slits directly figures this architecture. This simple method distinguishes the outline of the entire figure and abstracts the stance of the architecture.

The site is located in an old city in Japan, where many private houses stand in a row. The site size is depth of 50m and width of 7.5m. One of two narrow frontages faces a street and the other faces a river. We designed a long wall that encloses this narrow and long site. The slits open this enclosure. The 140mm width slits screen inner privacy from view from outside. But the slits bring 60 light into the house. This proposes one method to live in a dense residential area in Japan where houses stand side by side. 80 years old woman lives in this house. The house presents her both a life space with a soft light and an interesting experience of scale unlikely in a house.
This architecture has a silent ambiance just like in the midst of solitary jar and a poetic clearness as like in an endless spatiality. The slits hold the promise of an innovative design method of architecture.

The Slit House has its own special time.
At the dawn, watery light comes into the house through the slits. That makes the entire room bright faintly.
At 9:30AM,sequence of the feeble light that reflects to header of slits appears.
At 10:30AM, the sunlight pierces through angled slits at first. At 11:00AM,the sunlight pierces through all slits. The sunlight through the slit and the reflected light on the header of the slit project the stripe of V type to the long corridor. If you saw the repetition of this edgy light, you might feel as if time of 11:00AM has stopped. In as much as ten minutes, the reflected light on the header disappears. The shape of the light that the slit makes changes from V type into one stripe. The moments that the sun pierces through the angled slits and through the straight slits are different.　The angled slits get a little earlier. The momentary time lag let us feel a running of the sun and makes us forefeel the upcoming time of the dusk. And it shortens little by little. And watery light fills the house again with soft brightness. Then the night comes before long.

Location: Shiga Japan
Completion: 2005
Client: NIWAKA Co., Ltd
Site area: 346.67m2
Total floor area: 209.89m2
Structure design: HOJO STRUCTURE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Photos: Koichi Torimura
Words: EASTERN Design Office

Knit Stools_by Claire-Anne O'Brien

Inspired by elements of the knitted stitch itself such as rings and loops, the structures are revealed and celebrated through exaggerated scale in bold and textured forms. Lambswool and Sheeps wool, in a mix of hand and machine knit stitches, are constructed into playful statement pieces.

Claire-anne is a textile designer specialising in knitting. Originally from Ireland she has recently graduated from the Royal College of Art [2010] with a Masters in Textiles.Her work plays with technique and scale creating playful and tactile fabrics for interiors. This sculptural approach to textiles brings fabrics to life in three dimensions through form exploration and furniture.

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Imagens que me predem_Hoje

Long Studio_by Saunders Architecture

Long Studio is the first manifestation of a plan to breathe new life into Fogo Island. Remotely situated off the coast of Newfoundland, Fogo has been imperiled by the collapsed fishing industry and out-migration. A private foundation plans to restore Fogo’s vibrancy and protect its culture with a unique Arts Residency Program. A powerful combination of stunning architecture, art and nature, far from the distractions and stresses of any city, will draw the participation of A-list artists and high-end tourists, generating jobs and rebounding the island’s economy.
Fogo Island is an elemental place of subtle and abiding beauty. Eleven communities comprising 3000 people live unpretentiously on the rugged, windswept terrain, far from the influence of the outside world. Therefore, the project required a very particular architectural sensibility: imaginative enough to attract international acclaim and also sensitive to Fogo’s delicate social and geographical ecology. Rather than constructing a single edifice, residences, studios and a five-star inn will be scattered across the island, so that guests will connect with its various villages.

Completed in June 2010, Long Studio is the first piece of this master plan. The 120m2 building is one of six studio designs that can be reproduced as the colony grows. It was pre-fabricated by local builders in workshop during the winter, and then reconstructed on-site in the spring.
No road leads to Long Studio; it is a ten-minute walk from where the nearest track ends, ensuring complete physical and mental isolation. Like a shard of rock, its minimal, elongated form floats over the rough volcanic boulders, delightfully stretching airborne towards the Atlantic, with breakers incessantly crashing thunderously at its foot. The studio is a husk of blackened rough-sawn pine with an interior lining of whitewashed spruce. Its linear form is assertive, but its rugged surfaces and its off-the-shelf fixtures and finishings are unpretentious.

The entire southern wall is mute, like an arm extending permanent shelter. Three zones encourage indoor and outdoor activities and engagement with the surroundings. A covered “porch” marks the entrance to the studio. A central cut-out opens the studio to Fogo’s long summer days. An enclosed, trapezoidal box at end of the studio offers protection and solitude. Large windows at both ends and a skylight in the roof flood the interior with natural light and views and also facilitating the transport of large artworks and materials. The structure is unobstructed, maximizing wall and floor space for artist intervention. Storage, a composting-toilet and washbasins are tucked unobtrusively into a one-meter recess in the wall, avoiding visual distraction. 

Like all the new buildings for the project, Long Studio utilizes indigenous building techniques. Locally sourced wood cladding echoes the fishermen’s clapboard houses. Because the ground is too uneven and impenetrable, the studio stands on wood stilts just like Fogo’s traditional waterfront huts. This also allows the forceful winds to slip underneath the building rather than beating at its wall. The environment will leave its mark on the studio, weathering its wood over time.

The 100% off-the-grid studio produces its own power and treats its own waste, with no reliance on public services. Heat is produced from solar panels on the roof and a small wood stove. Rainwater is collected from the roof, stored in tanks in concealed storage rooms, and ultimately supplied to the shower and kitchenette. The studio has a composting toilet and grey water is treated on-site. The studio has been featured in a number of countries, in as diverse publications as Domus, Wallpaper, Fast Company and The New York Times, so that the initiative has already succeeded in transforming Fogo into an internationally coveted tourist destination.

Photos: Bent Rene Synnevag
Words: Saunders Architecture