Your house within weeks

NOEM is a Spanish based company which is specialized in prefab modular houses. They work with 0 emission materials and dry construction methods which allow their constructions to be fast, clean easy to build in alsmost any environment. They have three different lines of design among which I chose to show you NOEM GO.

With the NOEM GO , construction system you can start enjoying your new space within weeks by combining modules. Define the use, autonomy level and the options you need. You can customize interior and exterior skins, textures, colors, the distribution of windows and doors. And if, later on, you need to increase or decrease size, change distribution or location, no problem, because NOEM GOis made for just that.

After 8 weeks of production time in their workshop, they transport the modules by road and assemble them on the ground in a few days, avoiding the delays of traditional building methods. 

I am uploading a few images although I think you should check their webpage www.noem.com. I think the system is quite interesting, mainly because of teh type of foundation they use that allows to remove the modules without damaging the environment. I think it can be usefull mainly for Sara :). All the technical documents are in their Technical files although there are no technical drawings. However, the way they present the information is also quite useful for all of us as it is presented as a quite simple manual.

Warehouses can also be nice if SANAA designs them

BUILDING A COURTAIN

Until now, SANAA's big projects usually dealt with cultural or educational facilities. However, within this project, they have faced a new challenge, designing what it should be a sticking and quite large warehouse for Vitra production facilities.

The most interesting and challenging part of the project and the one that I am going to be presenting in here is the Façade: a double glazed rigid curtain.

In order to build this continuous surface, they used wavy acrylic glass elements wavy of approx. 1.8 meters wide by 11 high. This wavy surface consists on a colorless transparent outer layer and an opaque white inner layer.

The individual panels were melted down flat so after they could be heated at 60º in order to give them the structural curved shape they designed by means of a vacuum process.

The main concern of the architects was also avoiding the feeling of a smooth, repetitive and continuous image of the surface; therefore, they design three different types of elements with a different succession of waves that could be rotated 180 degrees. Having this in mind they finally achieve having six different types of panels to work with.

From a certain distance, the façade seems a plain and smooth surface due to the whiteness and brightness of the material. However, as the viewer gets closer, the façade gains in vitality and depth.

Another important characteristic of the façade is that from the outside you can only appreciate partly the building so it gives a sensation of being smaller and lighter.

The building is an enigmatic piece, which does not reveal anything about its function. It is also interesting that from the exterior is almost impossible to perceive that the plan of the building is a perfect circle. This characteristic is linked to the idea of the architect of avoiding the feeling of the perfect circle because being too rigid. 

  

Textiles in façades

I think this roject is quite nice in terms of light use, drawing technique and the transpotable concept. Hope you find it useful! 

The London Shooting Venue designed by Magma Architecture, will accommodate the events in 10, 25 and 50 m Sport Shooting at the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in the southeast London district of Woolwich.

Shooting is a sport in which the results and progress of the competition are hardly visible to the eye of the spectator. The design of the shooting venue was driven by the desire to evoke an experience of flow and precision inherent in the shooting sport through the dynamically curving space. All three ranges were configured in a crisp, white double curved membrane façade studded with vibrantly colored openings. As well as animating the façade these dots operate as tensioning nodes. The 18.000 m² of phthalate-free pvc membrane functions best in this stretched format as it prevents the façade from flapping in the wind. The openings also act as ventilation intake and doorways at ground level. The fresh and light appearance of the buildings enhances the festive and celebrative character of the Olympic event.

The shooting galleries for the London 2012 Olympic games are covered in spots that look the suckers of an octopus' tentacles.

Designed by Magma Architecture of London and Berlin, the Olympic Shooting Venue comprises three PVC tents that have been erected at London's historic Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich.

The extruded red, blue and pink circles draw ventilation inside each of the venues and also create tension nodes for the steel structure beneath the white skin.

Some natural light permeates this PVC membrane, while entrances are contained inside all the spots that meet the ground.

As the structures are only temporary, they will be dismantled immediately after the Olympics and reassembled in Glasgow for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

New ways of thinking on the portable space

Here it is a very interesting proposal for a portable room/office module. This design has been exhibited at the Fuori Salone this year, it is called HOTELLO, and it has been designed by Antonio Scarponi in collaboration with Roberto De Luca. 

HOTELLO is the design for a polyvalent structure that can be kept and transported in a cabinet. I though it was really interesting because this main characteristic as well as because of the drawings which show a lot of though on the construction systems behind all those colors and measurements. 

The 20th Century left vast, abandoned, spaces in our cities. Warehouses, factories, military barracks have been built and abandoned in a relatively short period of time. Now, the contemporary city is elaborating new strategies to re-inhabit these empty shells.  Hotellois a unit of 4 sqm, conceived to extemporarily inhabit the empty lofts of the contemporary city.

 Hotello is a portable space, packed into a trunk. Hotello contains all the necessary elements needed to work and rest. It consists of a metal structure that supports a translucent and sound absorbant curtain. Hotello can be combined and aggregated in different configurations.

Alive Structures_PPAG Architects

Hello all!

Here I post what I think is a pretty interesting example of how to build with natural materials a module that would actually change with the time. 

The project is called Kagome. It is an experiment developed by PPAG Architects together with Simón Oberhammer and Mayer Stefanie. The proposal seeks to create a series of play grounds in several museums in Wien. 

The project is composed by 120 willow flowerpots which create kind of bulb structure by bending the branches of the trees. The branches are hold by steel rings that are the ones providing the shape of the shelters. Each branch is 5 m high and 4 cm diameter.

Vegetation is fixed to a central pot in which the nutrients an irrigation for the plants are placed.All the technical elements are hidden under a sand layer which is used by the kids in their games. 

The previously mentioned steel rings are only used during the construction phase. Once the bulbs are fixed, the steel rings are substituted by natural elements.

As the structures are real willows, the bulbs will continue on growing during the time they will be in use.  

Shigeru Ban + ARTEK

Moi Moi!!

I have just remembered about a project that Artek developed a couple of years ago in collaboration with Shigeru Ban, in which they were dealing with frame structures. 

The project was a pavilion for exhibiting the vintage pieces of the company as a way to introduce the new path that Artek was going to take in the market. The proposal was developed by Shigeru Ban, the architectural design, and Ville Kokkonen, materiality research. 

The interesting point of the pavilion is not so much that it is a frame structure, but the material in which the frames are made. 

Artek studio developed a research on new recycle and sustainable materials coming up with the idea of UPM composite materials. 

These kind of material is made out of the back part of the stickers that due to some recycling processes, it becomes a quite resistant and waterproof material. The idea was using this new element to develop not only the frames of the structure, but also the envelope of the pavilion. 

The way in which the pavilion is designed and assemble made it possible to be transported from one place to another, being exhibited first time in Helsinki, then Milan and finally Miami. 

Artek introduced the pavilion designed by architect Shigeru Ban in Milan 2007. The pavilion was made in co-operation with UPM and built out of UPM-developed wood-plastic composite. The pavilion started a materials-oriented product development that has since led to new discoveries.

Along with the pavilion, Artek in Milan 2007 also showcased some exeptional 2nd Cycle items with embedded RFID tags containing their stories and history. Classic Artek pieces were also given a new, fresh look through the introduction of the Artek White collection.