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Last post

This is the last day of life*fever as a wordpress.com blog! Tommorrow it will be a big day, with the launching of a new design and feautures… So don’t miss it! Check out here, at midnight the new link!

But before I go, I had to share this videos with you, that I have discovered at fashion pig.. They are amazing. Very fashionable moments..

Villa 57+ en Dortmund

New architecture post from arkinetia! More info here 

Villa 57+:: An outwardly inconspicuous detached house in the south of Dortmund had to be extended by two nurseries as well as a bedroom including bathroom. A dressing room had to be arranged in the existing building as well. The backyard, especially the small forest situated in eastern part of the site, had to be kept untouched. We decided to build a shed resembling timber annex towards the road, which, due to its airiness, fitted well into the wooded site and suited well the tradition of timber buildings in country style areas. The nurseries are arranged on the ground floor and the bedroom including bathroom are on the top floor, as well as the functional dressing room. All other remaining utilizations inside the existing building were kept. The new building part is of a partly independent shape, which illustrates an extension of the existing building. Using vertical boarding over roof and wall, it bestows the new volume a simple, unornamented, and monolithic character and allows a subtle dialogue between the Old and the New. The differentiated line management of the building geometry leads to changing perspectives and increases the sculptural impression for the passerby. The garden concept was aiming at a continuation of the ground level vegetation of the forest along the annex as well as the existing building. This would have led to an even greater integration of the volume within its environment. Due to the fact that the constructor refused the suggested garden concept and removed the small forest, the plan of the appurtenant structure was not performed after the completion of the building.

Stuart Tanner Architects – Australia

Great House at Arkinetia. Check out more info here

The Pirates Bay House is a small coastal retreat near Eaglehawk Neck on Tasmania’s Tasman Peninsular. It has been designed primarily as an informal, intermittent use building. The clients requested a contemporary, steel framed building that made best use of an awkward site and brought the coastal aspect of its location into the living spaces. The driveway was an existing site condition, so the clients’ brief of being able to park under the building is fulfilled and interpreted to create physical drama and tension.

The building’s dramatic gesture toward the ocean is tempered by a more intimate dialogue with the rear of the site, thus symbolizing a bridge transition between wooded glade and open ocean view. Expressed structure and engineering are an intrinsic part of the architecture, correlating with the notion of the building as a hovering platform from which to experience nature. Architect, engineer and fabricator worked harmoniously to create a place where landscape, structure and space combine to become an exhilarating experience.

mkarchitecture – EE.UU.

This week Arkinetia‘s post, about eco-friendly home.. Check out more info here.

When architect Michelle Kaufmann moved to the Bay Area to join her husband last year, they quickly became frustrated trying to find a home that they could afford and was eco-friendly. After six months of looking at $600,000 fixer-uppers, Michelle took matters into her own hands. She designed a prefabricated, modern style home that had all the “green” features that the couple considered important, and could be constructed to the strict San Francisco building codes including seismic requirements and energy efficiency. With the help of Live Modern, the Glidehouse is now available for sale to others. A number of modular builders are fabricating the Glidehouse throughout many US states and Canada, making it one of the very few modern designs available. The house was available for tours May 15-16 at the Sunset Magazine Celebration Weekend and brought in more than 20,000 visitors during the two days.
“The current real estate market demonstrated to us that there are very few options available to people like ourselves and our friends for a new type of housing alternative,” said Kaufmann. “We feel we’ve done for pre-fabricated homes what Ikea has done for furniture and Volkswagen has done for cars which translates to intelligent design at affordable prices. The old trailer park myth of pre-fab homes is history, since most homes in today’s marketplace are at least partially pre-fabricated. Our designs are smart and modern, our workmanship is of the highest quality, we are totally energy efficient and sustainable and every home is built to local codes. It’s time that people have an alternative for home ownership. We think it’s the Glidehouse.”
The Glidehouse offers an affordable, low-maintenance, well-designed green housing alternative, in four different sizes – 672 sf for a 1-bedroom, 1,344 sf for a 2-bedroom, 1,560 sf for a 3-bedroom and a 2,016 sf courtyard version. It can be configured to either fit on an open lot with views, with glass walls that open onto the landscape. Or, it can adjust to a more dense, urban lot, which would feature glass walls that open onto two private courtyards, insuring privacy from neighbors.

ARCHTEAM – Czech Republic

This week, Martin from arkinetia brings to us this fabulous house, full of inspirational colour and design.. Read this small text showing a little bit of the creators concept.. Check out full information here.

Most of clients for our private houses have limited budgets, for financially modest or average buildings. As a rule, when designing houses we do not have the funds that would facilitate an extensive construction programme, for the building of really large houses. We have designed many private houses where financial aspects were a significant criterion. Financial limits do not limit our architecture. Our previous experience from projects and our present focus are a reflection of several values that are crucial for us, that overlap and combine in various ways when we work on a design. It is very difficult to list and rank the priorities in the individual phases of a project, because we have to think above all about the result – how they work together. Visiting the site and thinking about where the building will stand is important for us. We always want to give a house a particular atmosphere, and original individual elements. For the first phase of the design, two criteria are crucial for us:

A simple layout that can be modified and adapted in the future in view of new requirements.
We usually work on the basis of an open inner space, bounded by the outer wall and only divided by parts of the load-bearing structure.

A very simple and easy to implement construction.
In a large percentage of the houses we build, their implementation could be described as “assembly”, with limited needs for drawn-out manual building.

So how do we design small and medium-sized private houses? As elements that actively affect their setting. As a sequence from a real film, or a set of connecting spaces inside open halls. As a building set.

José Kós – Brasil

This week Arkinetia brings us one of the most amazing houses if ever seen. Based in Rio De Janeiro Brazil, in the state of Petróplolis rises a modern style home, full of light, beauty and peace also very functional. I believe images speak for their selves. So check out all the photos and more information here. Enjoy!

Manuel Aires Mateus e Francisco Aires Mateus – Portugal

This week Martin from arkinetia brings to us a new fabulous home based in Alentejo,Portugal. Check it out more info here!

Along this part of the Alentejo Coast various abandoned houses exist scattered across the landscape. Traces of whitewash still cling to many of them, covering the thick walls, supported by counterforts disproportionate in relation to the constructions’ modest proportions. They are simple volumes with few openings that establish a totally reciprocal relationship with the landscape, possibly like the people that live inside them. It could be said that in their laconic abandonment, they are as distant as possible from contemporaneity, the latter often associated with technologically sophisticated, diaphanous constructions in glass. The house designed by architects Manuel and Francisco Aires Mateus, being unequivocally contemporary in its qualities and limitations, is the result of an attentive and not at all nostalgic view of this secular form of inhabiting the landscape.

Seen from afar, it rises like a white solid placed on a hill ridge. No openings exist at all. The platonic suggestion –a white solid on a domestic scale- does not prevent guessing that this is a house. In this case and in the recent development of these architects in general, to inhabit signifies a serene search for simplicity, for the maximum reduction of the elements comprising the house. This is in order to construct only the essentials and to relativise as much as possible the fingerprint of the fleeting and seasonal. In this house the “idea” of the method of habitation has materialized, an unusual occurrence in Portuguese architecture due to the radical pretexts that such a passage implies.

One perceives a sense of “excavated space” in the interior: thick walls and the use of few materials. But it is not only that. The two wooden doors (in truth, two heavy panels that slide elegantly), one facing east, the other west, that when open permit a new complexity. The house can be completely opened to the outside and simultaneously serve as an organism of spaces excavated in the “white” mass. It is in this duality, between maximum permeability with the landscape and maximum introspection, that its conceptual and spatial wealth resides.

More information here 

Nuno Grande e Pedro Gadanho – Portugal

This week Martin from Arkinetia present you a new article on architecture about a Weekend Retreat in Carreço, Viana do Castelo… It´s amaizing, check out more info here.
The design adapts the program to a narrow and long plot, with a smooth slope, over the Atlantic shore.
Minimizing landscape impacts, and skipping the legal setback, the main volume “moulds” itself to the site’s topography through the cantilevered extension of the upper floors.
One of these projections, with near 8 meters, configures a balcony-terrace outside, hovering and opening onto the garden and the surrounding landscape. This imparts a horizontal “sliding” effect to the volumes, allowing a “de-materialization” of the house’s verticality.

On the “skin” of the building it is thus possible to understand the presence of the circulations and services that embrace, on the different floors, the central core and its structural “skeleton”.
The construction method inverts a common situation. Inside, the white architectural concrete’ stereotomy denounces the walls-beams that support the central core and extend the living room in the suspended balcony. Outside, the different plans are clad by cappotto and the alternation of colours is highlighted by the expressive game of volumes.
Finally, different openings framed by wood windows remind us of the unavoidable presence of the sea.

Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec

This week Martin from arkinetia brings to us news from Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec floating house! Check out more information here.

The Floating House is a studio for resident artists and authors invited by the Cneai, national contemporary art center for publication. Initiated in 2002 by a public commission and finished in 2006, this habitable barge was realized in collaboration with architects Jean-Marie Finot and Denis Daversin.
The simple lines of the structure are a pragmatic and poetic answer to the thin budget dedicated>>
to this challenging project. An aluminum skin enveloped by a wooden trellis delimits the long alcove laid onto the rectangular platform of the boat (23mx5m). In a global surface of 110m2 (with 23m2 of terraces), life and work are articulated around different spaces, neither defined nor definitive. Large flower pots placed on the terraces are the starting points of creepers that should invade the walls and roof. In the next future, plants will recover the whole, thus integrating the building within the landscape of the shores and providing further intimacy to the residents.

Resting just above the water and moored to the impressionists’ island in Chatou, the Floating House softly sways to the rhythm of the Seine’s swirls. The changing reflections of the light onto the water pervade the wooden walls cut open by two glazed facades in the main rooms. From the inside of the studio, the picturesque landscape that inspired Renoir’s “Déjeuner des canotiers” in 1881 is visible everywhere, blurred by the mirroring surface of the river. A fairy tale atmosphere favoring inspiration and contemplation.

The Floating House was conceived as a reproducible object, as it can be designed again with various lengths and rooms surfaces (the width is fixed by that of the river locks – in case the House boat moves).

Bligh Voller Neild – Australia

Here is a new architecture article from Arkinetia! This time he brings us an amaizing house in Autralia! You must check it all out! To view more information click here.

Located in a verdant Brisbane gully, near the river in Brisbane’s inner southern suburbs, this small house seeks to take full advantage of its secluded site and intimate views over the lush sub-tropical vegetation. By its location in the lower lying areas of the suburb and being close to the river, the site is subject to severe flooding in periods of intense rainfall. The need to raise the living areas above flood level whilst also retaining significant existing trees on the small site influenced the decision to arrange the house over 3 levels, maintaining a small footprint.

The lower floor under the flood level accommodates cars, storage and rainwater tanks. Access to the main floor is by a long bridge across the gully with views to both the north and east over adjoining gardens, providing large living areas, study, guest room, kitchen, laundry and guest bathroom with the living areas opening onto a large north facing deck with stairs connected to the garden. The upper level which overlooks the large, almost two storey high living spaces includes a generous master bedroom with bay window toward the river views and a mezzanine studio.

The character of the house and the method of construction responds to the particular physical characteristics of the site including the fragile nature of the soil conditions where the house straddles both a stormwater and sewer line, the close proximity of neighbours to the west and the dense tree canopy providing high levels of shade over the site. More specifically, the house employs a lightweight construction system supported on a grid of steel columns to the lower level with a hybrid timber and steel frame to the upper levels, clad externally generally with black stained plywood to diminish the apparent bulk of the house.

bevk perovic architects – Eslovenia

So here is a october new! Arkinetia is the latest contributor on life*fever, and beggining today, he will be posting one of the thursday posts! So sit back and enjoy this amazing house, full of a very special concept! This article is also here..
The house is located in a suburban settlement on the outskirts of Ljubljana.
The surrounding area is ‘covered’ with low-quality single-family houses, most of them built without building permits in the 1960’s. The owners bought the last available plot, a very small area (500m2), on the edge of the settlement, facing forest on the northern side. Therefore the theme of the project became one of ‘mediation’ – a house as a mediator between the anonymous, chaotic suburbia and the natural surroundings.

The house is conceived as a standard, patio-type house, formed by two wings that ‘frame’ the garden area. The wings are then split into two levels, to allow for insertion of the carport under the living area. By positioning the house almost on the edge of the site, and by lifting the level of the garden, the need for the fence surrounding the very small plot is eliminated.

The usual ‘split’ between the living and sleeping areas of the house is reversed, so that the sleeping area occupies the ground level of the house.
It consists of bedrooms and bathrooms for children and parents, which are formed as very small cells that can be joined together by means of series of sliding and folding panels, much like a Japanese house, where boundaries between particular areas become blurred. All of the spaces open up towards the wide corridor-workspace, with a long work surface that naturally extends into the raised grass plateau of the garden.

The main living area of the house is raised from the ground to allow for the sweeping panoramic view of the surrounding forest on the north. The long window on the southern side, raised 2 meters from the level of the room, allows for the sun to enter the room, while limiting the views to the neighbouring houses.

Structurally it is conceived as a ‘bridge’, spanning over the carport on the ground level.
As a typology, it is an open, loft-type space, very narrow and elongated, contrasting the closeness and compartmentalization of the bedroom area.
So the living room becomes a ‘mediating device’, a kind of a periscope, catching sunrays on the southern side, and framing the views of the forest on the northern side.

Materially, the whole house is clad in wood – vertical larch wood planks cover all the surfaces, including the pitched roof and the terrace – sun deck.
The only exception are the windows, only four of them in total – very large surfaces that ‘contain’ all opening and ventilation surfaces as well as all fixed glazing parts. Windows are custom-made, in steel structure with flush glazing.

bevk perovic architects
Fotos: Matevz Paternoster

Hotel Marqués De Riscal

Located in the heart of the Rioja wine region, this is the perfect place for a relaxing break or small meeting. 43 modern, comfortable suites feature a modern, comfortable atmosphere and unique design by Frank O. Gehry. Hotel Marqués De Riscal was designed in an attempt to redefine the traditional image of winery regions in Spain.  It’s  equipped with luxuries such as LCD TV, CD player, Coffee/Tea Maker, Marble Bathrooms and High Speed Internet Access (ADSL and wireless).Enjoy the views of the vineyards and the town of Elciego, while sitting in the bay windows.

youmeheshe architects

The design strikes a new profile due to both the logic of off-site construction and the volumetric configuration of spaces that allow natural ventilation, maximisation of daylight and the oportunity to reconfigure. 7.83 HZ will set standards in healthy living with construction materials selected to avoid nasty chemical and their by-products.

by youmeheshe architects 

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects – New York City

Long Island House

By Arkinetia

This is a house that is marked by quiet serenity, openness to the landscape and a sense of spaciousness without monumentality. It is a weekend retreat, sympathetic to needs for privacy and for sociability.

The house is sited on three acres at the edge of a large pond, with distant views of the ocean. Beautiful mature pine trees surround the site, and woods and thicket separate the house from its neighbors. The house has been kept low, with a clerestory only in the living room. The living spaceis all on one level, except for a small reading loftand outdoor balcony which offers both inward andoutward views.

There are four volumes: the public space, a master bedroom wing, a guest wing and a planting and storage shed. The first three volumes are connected by glass passageways. The house has not been air-conditioned and takes advantages of cross breezes by the careful placement of operablewindows. To make the house as inviting as possible to the children and other visitors, each of the guestrooms frames a distinctive view of the land and has its own door to the outside.

The house is wood frame with cedar exterior siding. Douglas fir panels are used on the inside of the exterior walls. The interior and exterior window frames are mahogany. Floors are Douglas fir and New York bluestone in honed and split face. The fireplace chimney, which is the dominant element in the living room, is also faced in split face bluestone. Built-in bookshelves, beds, dressers and custom furniture are American cherry.

Tod Williams

Tod Williams received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 1965. He studied Architecture at Cambridge University in 1966 and received his Master of Fine Arts and Architecture from Princeton in 1967. He taught at the Cooper Union from 1974–1989, and has held visiting professorships at a number of schools of architecture since the mid 1980s. In 1982 he received an Advanced Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome. In 1995 Williams received The Ruth Carter Stevenson Chair at The University of Texas in Austin. He held the Eliel Saarinen Chair at the University of Michigan in 2002, the Louis I. Kahn Chair at Yale in 2003 AND 2005, and the Thomas Jefferson Chair in 2004 at the University of Virginia.

His work has been honored by The American Institute of Architects with numerous Distinguished Architecture Awards. In 1988 he received a National AIA Award for Feinberg Hall, a dormitory at Princeton University and in 1989, the firm again won a National AIA Award, this time for the Spiegel Pool House addition. In 1992 Williams and Tsien won two more National AIA Awards, this time for the Quandt Loft and for the Go Silk Showroom both in New York City. In 1997 the firm won a National Honor Award for the Neurosciences Institute. In 2001 they received 2 National AIA honor Awards for the Williams Natatorium at Cranbrook School and The Rifkind House in Long Island.

He and partner, Billie Tsien, have been recipients of several grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. Williams has served on the Architectural Advisory Committee for Princeton University, the New York City and National AIA Awards Committees, and as Director of The Architectural League. In 1992 he was made a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects.

Tod Williams started his career by working for Richard Meier from 1967–1973 and has been registered since 1972. He has been principal of his own firm for the last twenty–nine years and in 1986 formed the partnership of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. The studio is well known for its wide range of projects, its exceptionally high standards, and work which emphasizes the importance of place and explores the nature of materials.

Mr. Williams’ work has been published extensively and he has authored a number of articles. A monograph entitled Work/Life, published by Monacelli Press, was released in the fall of 2000.

Billie Tsien

Billie Tsien received her undergraduate degree in Fine Arts from Yale in 1971 and her Master in Architecture from UCLA in 1977. She has taught at Parsons, Yale, Harvard GSD, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Pennsylvania. She shares with Tod Williams the Louis I. Kahn chair at Yale University.

She has worked with Tod Williams since 1977 and has been in partnership with him since 1986.

She and Tod Williams have received various awards for their work. The Natatorium at the Cranbrook School, the Rifkind residence, the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California and two interior projects have all won National AIA Honor Awards. In December 2001, the office completed The American Folk Art Museum in New York City, the first new museum to be built in New York in more than thirty years. The museum has been recognized by Newsweek magazine as giving New York “a beautiful place to be.” In 2002 the museum received the Arup World Architecture award for Best Building in the World.

A monograph entitled Work/Life, published by Monacelli Press, was released in the fall of 2000. Her other completed projects include residences in New York City, Southampton, and Phoenix, Hereford College dormitory and dining facility at the University of Virginia, two major additions to the Phoenix Art Museum, and the Mattin Arts Center at Johns Hopkins University.

Billie Tsien has an interest in work that bridges art and architecture. She is on the advisory panel for the Wexner Prize. She is on the board of the Public Art Fund, the Architectural League, and the American Academy in Rome. She was a resident at the Academy in 1999. She is the recipient with Tod Williams of the Brunner Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Medal of Honor from the New York City AIA, and the Chrysler Award for Design Innovation, The Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture and the President’s Medal from the Architectural League.

See all photos in flash presentation here.

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects – New York

Lofts and Penthouses

LOFT ARCADIA

Situated in one of the most proeminent buildings of 19th cebtury industrial premises in Italy, and impressive penthouse designed by the Architect Anna Cilia stands among other renovation works within its complex. This particular complex is located in the outskirts of the city of Milan, in a zone that has become a destination for those wishing to escape from the metropolis and find a space conducive to dialogue, discussion and idea-sharing.

The structure of the factory is a beautiful example of industrial architecture. Endowed with the charms of its materials, iron and brick, its a classic ceilings are stripped bare and its larg windows let light in straight from above. The idea was to restore the existing structure, pursuing the priginal spatial logic and using the concepts of continuity and innovation expressed in the project. All this combined with the desire to create large spaces. The original materials were upheld, with no intention to hide or camouflage them. The result is a spatious dwelling organized in different levels.

Source: Lofts and Penthouses
Buy it here

Inspirational Homes

Check out this inspirational home!

via insideout magazine 

House in Rio

While I was surfing on the web, I found this amazing house at House in Rio, and I completely fall in love. House in Rio is a website, runned by Jean-Luc Bucharent, Carlos Eduardo Schmidt (Rio departement) and Barbara Durand (Paris Dep.). Their purpose is to promote the “Brazilian Souç” concept as defined by Oskar Metsavaht (Osklen). In order to do so, this team selects places which reflect this spirit due to their architecture, location and potential of decoration, and present on the fabulous website.

Designers Guild / Super Cosy / Amanda Mediant / Architecture Netherlands

First of all, you must visit new Designers Guild Collection, it’s amazing. So fresh, colourfull and in a way so deep! Tricia Guild founded Designers Guild in Chelsea, London in 1970, one of the most influential and creative forces in Interior Design. Since then, the company has achieved international renown for a wide variety of home and lifestyle products; most notably huge and varied ranges of furnishing fabrics and wallcoverings, bedlinen, blankets and towels, furniture ,carpets and rugs, paint, stationery and leather goods.

Speaking in Designers Guild, you got to come to Oporto, and visit one of the most colourful and fun interior design shops, Super Cosy! Leaded by Isabel Cami and Barbara Osório, it has been growing since the past two years and it became one of the most famous interior design shop in the city!

You got to visit Amanda Mediant, a free lance ilustrator and paintor! She was born in Paris and after some years working with clothing and shoes distribution, she now leads her own company and works for important design firms, magazines.. And believe me, her canvas and ilustrations are trully beautifull.

Speaking about Architecture, you must buy this book, from Taschen! It’s worth..
Buy it here..