Modular Bamboo Hotel

Penda design group created a flexible and portable hotel design, made up primarily of bamboo sticks and nature. The structure can expand horizontally and vertically,

"The structure could grow as tall as the trees," Chris Precht from Penda told Dezeen. "Connected to the verticality of the trees, we can experience a forest from the perspective of a child climbing a tree, in between the treetops, with the birds – fully connected with nature in 3D and HD."

Native American tipis were the inspiration where the X shaped bamboo joints would be built on. Horizontal rods support the floor structure and the joints may be manipulated both vertically and horizontally to increase the height and width of the structure.

Slightly raised off the ground to accommodate changes in the levels. Joints are to be tied together by rope to be disassembled and re-used elsewhere. Bamboo was chosen for its flexibility and wide availability in China. 

"The span of each structural grid is 4.7 metres, so quite narrow, and eight sticks of structural beams are combined at each joint, so the system will be able to hold a lot of weight," Precht said.

"The great thing about a flexible grid is that you can add structural beams when necessary, so if there is going to be more load on one part of the structure, more bamboo can be added."

Video of Idea

More on the project

VitraHaus

VitraHaus

Herzog & de Meuron

The famous Vitra Haus has been designed in 2006 by the architects Herzog & de Meuron. The construction of this building answers the need of space expressed by Vitra. The space was needed to expose a new furniture collection. 

The house furniture collection of Vitra was the first one directed to particular clients. The idea of a show room for houses is what inspired the pitched roof shape of the structure.

The building whose clabs intersect the underling gables creates a three dimensional assemblage. The composition of houses makes believe at an almost random disposition at first.

The composition is made out of twelve different houses creating a five level building. The different houses have been following the general shape of the houses of the region.

The house are stacked one on top other and have up to five meters cantilevers. Those long cantilevers give the impression that they stand by balancing.

The idea was to go away from a longitudinal building and try to have the minimum footprint. The circulation of the building is made so that the visitor will arrive and exit on the same place.

The building joins on the Vitra campus building created by Frank Gehry or Tadao Ando.

The exterior charcoal color contrasts with the inside perfect white. The continuous white has been chosen to put the furniture in value. 

The building transforms itself at night when the landscape surrounding disappears and the building interior spaces seams like floating houses.

References: 

http://www.archdaily.com/50533/vitrahaus-herzog-de-meuron

https://www.dezeen.com/2010/02/19/vitrahaus-by-herzog-de-meuron-2/

La Trufa · Antón García Abril

Project: La Trufa

Architect: Ensamble Studio | Antón García Abril

Location: Costa da Morte, Galicia (Spain)

Date: 2010

"The Truffle" is a extremely small sustainable house located in a cliff area of North Spain. With just 25 sqm, this house is completely blended with its natural environment, making it another piece of earth.

The most highlighted aspect of this project is its construction process. Earth, concrete and hay bales were the only materials employed. Then, with the help of Paulina, a cow who ate all the hay, The Truffle took this amorphous shape. 

The first step was diking on the ground, creating a hole and removing the topsoil. The next action was to fill it up with hay bales, as the air volume within the house. After, pouring concrete to wrap this whole volume. In short, hay bales were used for the negative space and concrete for the positive one. This is because they hay bales will later be removed by the feeding of a cow. 

With one single space, this small house provides all the necessary comfort for its privileged user. Its process and location resembles the most pure nature, helping the creation of a contemplative space.

To check more about the on-site construction process, here it is the link to the video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W44flcBu5tw

Concrete filled steel wall_Mikimoto Ginza 2_Toyo Ito & Associates

Project: Mikimoto Ginza 2

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Year: 2005

Architect(s): Toyo Ito & Associates

 This is a rectangular building, 17m wide by 14m deep, with nine stories above ground and one basement level. The lower levels are used as a shop and offices for Mikimoto and the upper levels are leased as offices. Mikimoto Ginza 2 is wrapped in four thin walls to create a tube structural system. There are no internal columns, and the floor slabs are a stack of nine homogeneous layers.

In this project,  Toyo Ito used a steel plate-sandwitched concrete structure in which concrete is poured into a space between two steel plates. Panels composed of steel plates (t=6-12mm) sandwiched together with studs and structural reinforcements are made in a factory and conveyed to the construction site. After erection and adjustment on the site, they are welded together and 200mm of concrete is poured inside. Through this system, which treats the steel plates as expendable formwork, it was possible to create an extremely thin structure and achieve high strength and redundancy. Also, since it is a non-directional planar structural system, it was possible for openings to be inserted freely.

The openings of this building employ random shapes derived from a quasi-crystalline geometry generated by the dividing the façade planes with seven triangle shapes. By integrating the structure and the fluid opening pattern (as if capturing a moment of fluctuation), and through the use of a special coating, the building expresses both soft lightness and refined intensity. This design is not based on pure geometry, nor does it follow a (structural) expressionist approach, but employs a new method. It goes without saying that such a design has become possible for the first time through the use of structural analysis technology known as the “finite element analysis method.

In order to realize flat facades without joints, the welded joints were smoothed flat on site and the steel received many layers of paint, from rust proofing to topcoats. By eliminating the joints usually found in curtain walls, the external image of the building presents a different kind of abstractness, and the multilayer coatings draw out the materiality of the steel plate to the maximum and directly express the strength of the structure.

Mikimoto Ginza 2- Construction Systems-The plates were then transported and assembled on site.

 It took a total of 330 pieces to build the facade.

Mikimoto Ginza 2- Construction Systems-To weld the plates and paint them.

Mikimoto Ginza 2- Elevations (A); parametric design of the facade (B)

Mikimoto Ginza 2- Sections and exploded axonometry.

Mikimoto Ginza 2- Concrete filled Steel wall details.

Sources: 

-"Mikimoto Ginza 2". OpenBuildings,

http://architecturalmoleskine.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/toyo-ito-mikimoto-ginza-2.html

http://openbuildings.com/buildings/mikimoto-ginza-2-profile-2818#