Bernard Khoury Architects

For those of you that are becoming regulars on my blog you will have seen the post 'A building cut in half' with the stunning staircase... Well that was designed by these guys, Bernard Khoury. I spotted another building by them today on ArchDaily again equally as beautiful..

The open plan frame structure allows for a variety of layout combinations for every type of residence. Each apartment has an end which is completely glazed in order to make the most of natural light.. Their attention to detail in particular is what I like most about the two designs I have displayed by Bernard Khoury, I really love these photos..

They do love a sexy staircase too..

Imperial War Museum - North

Also on the second day of our field trip we visited the Imperial War Museum in Salford. The building was designed by Daniel Libeskind, who also designed the 18.36.54 house I talked about last week.

This building was nice and featured some really cool spaces inside. Two parts I really liked were a) the viewing platform which is 29 metres high and offers great views across Manchester and Old Trafford!

And b) for 3 pictures that were displayed showing a small amount of the process that went in to the design. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have slowly began to understand the design process and learned to appreciate design from an architects point of view.

The images I feel go some way to showing where the final design originated from.

Comments if you pleassseeeeee

Field Trip to Antony Gormley @ Crosby Beach

I managed to jump on to a field trip with year one BA Interior Architecture. Day one we hit Liverpool and explored the 2 Cathedrals and the city in general, on day two we headed north and up to Crosby Beach to see Antony Gormley's sculptures

100 cast iron, life-size figures stretch three kilometres along the beach and up to one kilometre out to sea.

Apologies for the picture quality, I only had my Blackberry!!

 

House R128

I am just loving houses with funny names at the moment! This sounds like it belongs in a Star Wars movie or something... It looks like it could too if I'm honest...

The house was designed and built by Werner Sobek in Stuttgart, Germany. The house is devoid of switches, door handles and other fitting normally associated with a contemporary house. Operations such as opening and closing windows, watering the garden and setting the room temperature all use a custom house control software. a mix of sensors, voice activation and touch screens control the various functions.

What this house does is remarkable and an exploitation of modern technology however, it does not simplify life through reducing complexity but more replace simple physical actions with a computer language... is there a need for what it has achieved?

Comments please

OfficePOD

Attention workers from home! How about walking down to the bottom of your garden everyday and settling down to work in an office like this??!!

I certainly wouldn't mind it! A really cool little design that makes the most of a small space. I am fascinated by small spaces and intend on designing my own garden office, maybe over the Christmas break when I'm not so busy.. keep your eyes peeled! But for now enjoy this....

 

More Info @ www.officepod.co.uk

Islamic Architecture - a future project

We have been told at university that we may potentially look at some Islamic architecture, mainly as a way of broadening our horizons and challenging what we already know.

This was the Paul Stallen Studio's response to a brief that required a new Federal National Council Parliament building that promoted monumental Islamic architecture. Not knowing much about this subject yet makes it hard for me to comment but I think it looks nice...

What did get me thinking however was the way that facade strongly resembles the Adaptive Building Initiative's current projects. I would be interesting to see their technology produced on a large scale...

Their facade systems are dynamic and react to help regulate light and solar gain, ventilation and air flow, privacy and views.

A Building Cut in Half

So I found this building on Archdaily and it instantly caught my attention. A lot of my time during the day is spent 'feeding' myself with new ideas and scrolling though many blogs looking for new designs or technologies. Most of what I really like gets posted on here for you to all see too so I hope you like this one too..

When I first saw this my instant reaction was that the building had been cut in half, its as though the architect designed the full building, produced a section and thought 'hey that looks good'. But in my opinion.... it works!

The staircase/ platform is beautiful.. I could look at that all day.

Please leave your comments

Bjarke Ingels Group - Ziri Island

Where do you even begin on a project like this?? Well, the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) were approached by a minister from Azerbaijan, a country known as the 'Alps' of central Asia , and with him he brought a project beyond any architects wildest expectations! 

He asked the 'BIG' whether they could form the design of an urban master-plan to be located on an island just off the shore from the capital Baku. The main criteria being that it recreate the silhouette of the 7 most prominent mountains of Azerbaijan... no sweat...

So having decided on the 7 mountains to be replicated, the BIG then began to re-interpret them as urban, architectural structures. The island currently is basically just a desert with no vegetation, no water, energy or resources, so what the BIG came up with is a fully self sufficient eco-system. I really like Bjarke Ingel's comment 'where an urban development normally happens at the expense of nature, in this case it is actually creating nature.." 

The building do not just provide the imagery of a mountain they in fact operate like them too, creating shelter from the wind, as well as accumulating solar energy and water.

The seven designs...

The scheme has now been approved too so keep your eyes peeled...