CONTEMPORIST

The Prospect by Jonathan Segal
Martin Luther Church by Coop Himmelb(l)au
Jewel Box by SDeG

Posted: 17 Aug 2011 04:40 PM PDT

Architect Jonathan Segal designed The Prospect house in La Jolla, San Diego, California.

Description from the architect:

This 7,200 square-foot lot was an abandoned brown-field site, vacant since 1992. The architect/owner used the space to build a private, urban residence for his family with an on-site architecture studio. The residence is a stucco box resting on and supported by Corten steel wall planes, providing both privacy and noise attenuation. The main living area is surrounded by a reflecting pool on one side and a glass floor on the other. Below grade, where the office and recreation facilities reside, the glass floor/ceiling liberates the space and allows ample natural light. The house is open and flowing extending the livable space into the private garden and reflecting pool. Boundaries are dissolved and extended through sliding panels and lightness, transparency, and expansive views.

Visit Jonathan Segal’s website – here.

Martin Luther Church by Coop Himmelb(l)au

Posted: 17 Aug 2011 01:20 PM PDT

Coop Himmelb(l)au have designed the Martin Luther Church in Hainburg, Austria.

On the site of a previously existing church in the center of Hainburg, Lower Austria, a protestant church with prayer hall, community hall and other spaces will be built.

On the level of form, the project is influenced on the one hand by immediately surrounding buildings. Its complex roof landscape variegates the architectural language of the saddleback roofs, which are common in the region, and of the roof of the romanesque ossuary close by. On the other hand, its individual geometry also expresses a certain spiritual symbolism, like with the prayer hall in the shape of a very large table. Three skylights resting on the four legs of this table are inserted in the roof construction.

On the side of the main road the church has the most transparent and open appeal; its folded, zigzagging glass façade invites the visitor into the high prayer room. Yet its intimacy is conserved by a symbolic wooden wall, standing free just behind the glass façade. An illuminated cross-shaped opening in this wall projects the simple message of the church into the urban space.

From the prayer hall the visitor reaches the daylit, glass-roofed children zone and the baptistry. Behind, the community hall is situated. Large folding doors between the two large halls allow to open and join the whole spatial sequence to one continuous space. A third building component at a smaller alley is situated next to the two main halls and houses the sacristy, the pastor's office, a small kitchen and other service spaces. A handicapped-friendly ramp leads between the buildings to the community garden. The fourth element of the ensemble is the delicate sculpture of the bell tower on the forecourt.

Visit the Coop Himmelb(l)au website – here.

Photography by Duccio Malagamba

Jewel Box by SDeG

Posted: 17 Aug 2011 04:12 AM PDT

SDeG designed the Jewel Box commercial building in Bangalore, India.

The Jewel Box is designed to retail precious stones, and accommodate administrative offices. The building is shaped by both program and the geometries of crystals.

A series of design processes then dictate the malleability of the facades – our first inferences stemmed from raw crystal and its highly fractured attributes. We then aimed to rationalize the facets through several stages of refinement while ensuring a perceptible relationship between fenestration and the internal functions. However on the outside, the 'bevels' aspire to camouflage this relationship and become many parts of a homogeneous whole.

The beveled façade is 75mm thick, cast-in situ using ferrocement technology and light enough to be hung off the main RC structure. On the inside, the 'bevels' create a variety of edge conditions; therefore, each floor therefore gets a different set of views – of the immediate and distant context.

Visit the SDeG website – here.