| Residence in Belo Horizonte by Anastasia Architects Posted: 28 Sep 2011 04:16 PM PDT Anastasia Architects have designed this house in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. 
. The 370 square meters residence distributed in two levels is situated in a manly residential neighborhood in the city of Belo Horizonte – Brazil – on a 450 square meters flat site. The architectural approach seeks to privilege the maximum integration of external and internal areas, mixing up their boundaries, and, then amplifying the feeling of wideness. Due to the reduced size of the site, residual and crossing spaces were practically left out (for example, there is no entrance hall, in behalf of a visual permeability with the entrance garden, achieved through large pivotal doors in the facade). The floor plan is rectangular and compact, stretching till the site's sidelines. The rooms are illuminated by large doors front and back facades and also by matted glass locking (u-glass that acts as a good thermal insulation due to the existence of an air layer between the glass sheets) between the lagged cover labs. A glass cover over a concrete pergola complements the illumination through an indoor garden. Therefore, the house is flooded by zenithal and indirect natural light that besides avoiding artificial lighting during the day, also avoids excessive heat from direct sunlight. The prevailing wind comes from the street, thus the entering doors work as regulators of wind speed. Totally opened in the summer, praise cross ventilation, or closed in the winter, or even semi opened if little ventilation is desired. The residence was established in the street level, one meter above natural ground, in order to avoid unevenness and improve accessibility of the social areas. And, it also let the house more protected from the soil moisture. It is important to remind that one of the reasons for the implantation of compact field, reducing its footprint, was to increase the permeability of the ground, something really needed in our cities. Solar collectors (that meet the house and the pool) occupy the most of the cover slab which prevented the use of this area initially contemplated. Due to the large spans desired, supported by few points of foundation, and also to the large porch swing, the upper walls are concrete beams built by ripped forms of wood left apparent. Its aesthetics comes from a structural option, hence follows that it is not decorative. This structural gymnastics was important, as the support pillars on the porch would be contrary to the intention of integration between interior/exterior desired. The result was a lightweighted residence (despite its aesthetics of exposed concrete), lighted and ventiladed, with pleasant and proportional spaces that puts into to practice the initial desire to the best possible use of external area.                     Visit the Anastasia Architects website – here. Photography by Jomar Bragança . .  |
| M3 Chair by Thomas Feichtner Posted: 28 Sep 2011 12:45 PM PDT Vienna-based designer Thomas Feichtner has created the M3 Chair. 
. Description from the designer: For Vienna Design Week 2011, Neue Wiener Werkstätte will be showing the M3 Chair developed specifically for this exhibition. This unique object will be juxtaposed with the mass-produced FX10 Lounge Chair, an earlier work by Feichtner which has since become a classic of Austrian design. While these two pieces share a geometric theme, the M3 Chair exhibits an open, wooden cantilever construction that contrasts with the closed body of the Lounge Chair. The installation highlights not only the tension between closed and open, heavy and light, surface and line, and mass-production and the single copy, but also the symbiosis between traditional workmanship and contemporary design. These pieces thus embody Neue Wiener Werkstätte's ideal of hand-producing technically perfect individual products built to last generations, furniture designed to guarantee historical recognizability—the perfect union of hand-craftsmanship, tradition and design. Liberated from the demands normally made on a mass-produced item, this design experiments with functionality, structural engineering and material. Both its back and its armrests are mere tangents of the construction, the functions of which are only discovered via actual use. With a seating surface floating within the construction and legs extending far to the sides, the M3 is most assuredly not a chair that saves space—it is much rather one which creates a space. The dimensions of the M3 measure one cubic meter, standing for a conscious way of appropriating one's own space. Hence the "m3" reference in the name M3 Chair. It is only via the chair that the open space is defined. The chair is made of one and only one material: oak. This is a conscious choice of materials, harkening back to the woodworking tradition upheld by furniture workshops of yore. The wood renders the chair's light construction a static experiment which could only succeed in a handmade, unique item. Like many works by Feichtner, the M3 is to be understood as an artistic and experimental examination of design removed from industry and mass-production, as art and design placed in interdisciplinary dialog with one another. The M3 experiment is particularly well-suited to showing that design can free itself from the doctrine of the purely objective and is not automatically obligated to serve industrial utility. It represents a catalyst for the discussion of various positions. The M3 is a contribution to the design festival of the City of Vienna. Watch a short video of the making of the chair – here.       Visit Thomas Feichtner’s website – here. . .  |
| Lilypad House by Jorge Hrdina Architects Posted: 28 Sep 2011 05:58 AM PDT |
| EV House by Ze Arquitectura Posted: 28 Sep 2011 01:49 AM PDT Ze Arquitectura have sent us images of the Ze House they’ve designed in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. 
. Description from the architects: The concept of the project starts locating a central backyard as the focal point of all interior spaces. On the first floor we located all public spaces such as vestibule, double height living & dining room, library, kitchen, family room and a wood workshop. On the second floor we have a second more private family room, 3 bedrooms (each one with their own walking closet and bathroom) and laundry. Finally on the 3rd floor we have a service room. To create textures and cousiness we used hardwood and marble floors as well as marble stone details on several interior walls and chimney. On the facades we used marble stones and wood looking aluminum screens, all integrated by clean geometries and shapes.           Visit the Ze Arquitectura website – here. .  |
