A South Korean designer Ramei Keum recently has finished his latest design – Stand Hanger ‘Axis’. Axis is a stand hanger which its frame itself has a function of a hanger. Some people will have an experience not hanging up clothes since a stand hanger doesn't have an aid hanger (a small hanger).

In such an experience,  Ramei Keum found a design point of Axis. A simple change of its structure makes Axis have two hidden hangers with a formative feature.

+Technical information / credits

Design: Ramei Keum
Project: Axis 2010
Dimension: W 400 D 1000 H 1750
Material: Stainless steel

+ All images courtesy Ramei Keum

The spanish architecture firm A-cero recently has completed the 108 housing in Madrid.

It has been designed from a clear sculptural inspiration; the blocks appear dressed in marble travertino and create curved shapes and edges. These elements emphasize the project's wings and contribute to give weightlessness to the building.

A-cero

108 Housing in Madrid, image courtesy of A-cero

+ Project description courtesy of A-cero

The Architecture Studio A-cero, managed by Joaquín Torres and his associate architect Rafael Llamazares, presents this housing in the outskirts of Madrid, in "Pozuelo de Alarcón".

It has been designed from a clear sculptural inspiration; the blocks appear dressed in marble travertino and create curved shapes and edges. These elements emphasize the project's wings and contribute to give weightlessness to the building.

108 Housing in Madrid, image courtesy of A-cero

In the main entrance there is a vertical fail made of stone dark granite that contrasts with the facade.

The large windows facilitate the access of the light to the house's interior. In the first floor you can find the hall, kitchen and service area. In a lower floor there are the most intimate areas constituted by the bedrooms and spaces for free time.

The house, with a 1.000 m2 area, dialogues with the natural environment and, from the point of view of the design, shows the A-cero Studio signs and its architecture philosophy.

108 Housing in Madrid, image courtesy of A-cero

+ Project credits / data

Project: 108 Housing
Architect: A-cero
Location: Madrid, Spain

+ All images courtesy of A-cero

Katashi Vanity, image courtesy of Greentea Design

Greentea Design, is an online source for contemporary Japanese furniture, Asian furniture, and antique Oriental furniture. It is based in Canada and in the Riverdale Studio District just 10 minutes from downtown Toronto.

If you are looking for bathroom furniture, perhaps the Greentea Design collections is one of the option for your bathroom. The bathroom Vanities serve as the centerpiece of your bathroom, so it is important to evaluate and choose quality bathroom vanities when remodeling your bathroom. These large vanities range in style from rustic antiques to elegant, contemporary pieces. It can be customized to integrate with any bathroom to fit the tone for the room, representing the unique taste of the owner.

The antique pieces that can be adapted as vanities have beautiful patinas from their decades of use. The contemporary bathroom vanities have a elegant satin black lacquer finish and clean simple lines. Two spacious cabinets provide a large amount of storage space for all your bathroom necessities, and are also used to conceal plumbing system for the countertop basins.

+ Greentea Design collection – Bathroom furniture

Mexico-based firm a10studio, collaboration with Carlos Marín from lab07 and Hugo Sanchez from ENTORNO (landscape architecture consultant) designed this Agriculture Museum competition entry for the city of Culiacan (Sinaloa, Mexico). The proposal finally has been chosen as one of the finalist proposals by the government of the city.

The project is an ambitious intervention for a marginated area in the limits of Culiacan, it re-thinks the idea of “public space” in Mexico and bet on a project who could re-activate activities and exchange among citizens and neighbors of the area.

a10studio

Agriculture Museum, rendering courtesy of a10studio

+ Project description courtesy of a10studio

Background:

One of the most internationally recognized emblems of Mexico, and particularly of the State of Sinaloa, is its agricultural production. The state of Sinaloa is known as the “granary of Mexico” because it is the producer of a big variety of food. Its efficient fields have become national leaders in their yields.

Because the economy of Sinaloa is sustained by its agricultural activities, the project seeks to recognize it and promote it, through a project that displays objects related to branches of technology, history of agriculture and agronomy as well as agricultural ways which sustain the economy of Sinaloa.

Through the creation of the Museum of Agriculture the city government tries to allow the public to learn more about the forms of production in the locality, while recognizing both the agricultural practice as such, and those who make possible such a noble activity.

Agriculture Museum - Site plan, drawing courtesy of a10studio

Agriculture Museum - Section 01, drawing courtesy of a10studio

Agriculture Museum - Section 02, drawing courtesy of a10studio

Project Brief
Intro:

Through agriculture, man has colonized the territory for centuries, creating irrigation systems and by planting with geometric laws. Has de-naturalized the natural areas through the planting of natural elements; the distance that are planted trees or plants depends on both the size of the crop itself as the collection systems used. Each plantation produces a texture and color over the territory.

Agriculture industrializes, the landscape urbanizes.

In our proposal outside is as important as the inside. There are no objects and an external reality, but a continuum between forms that wrap and un-wrap, that close and open, that focus and serve as a focus. The architecture as this, expanded in reality, in the middle, through the environment, is an extension. The environment in which it appears is a field.

We present 3 key strategies for the development of the project:

• Operative Topographies
• Ecomonumentality
• Active Ecology

Agriculture Museum, rendering courtesy of a10studio

The spectacle of nature and city become now comparable.

+ OPERATIVE TOPOGRAPHIES:

Based on the topographic analysis of the site, we suggests a strategy of folding, cutting and movement of the territory. Such movements define platforms developed as programmatic scenarios, functional plateaus exacerbating their flexible surface condition, either as slipped and extended surfaces [dynamic soil], or as extruded surfaces [located reliefs]. In both cases it is manipulated landscapes that refer to the nature of vacant spaces, and ultimately, the very definition of landscape as a background, as construction and stage at the same time: landscapes within landscapes. The ground respond to a willingness to overlap, the reliefs to an interlock.

These topographies form in any case, new geographies on the ground; mineral and vegetal landscapes in which the movements and flows are articulated by a manipulated geography and a generated space.

Agriculture Museum, rendering courtesy of a10studio

+ ECOMONUMENTALITY:

We are used to think of architecture in function of the place, meaning that it could find the keys with which to tackle the project. There are many ways to anchor to the site. The whole place has gone from being understood as a landscape, whether natural or artificial, and it has ceased to be the neutral ground on which man-made architectural objects stand out, to become the object of primary interest and focus of attention. Thus, changing the point of view, the landscape loses its momentum and becomes an object of possible transformations, both at the architectural level, neighborhood and city-level.

The architecture starts a process of artificial blurring with an obvious interest in incorporating a natural condition, both in terms of composition as constructive (proposed construction system of rammed earth walls, to emphasize the use of existing assets in the site as well as develop strategies for sustainability and passive ecotechniques), in search for environmental sensitivity and a formal complexity that responds precisely to the values of the Culiacan society.

The project seeks to build a complete redefinition of the place, offering primarily the invention of a topography. So with this double movement, from the nature to the project and from the project to nature, we seek to rescue a “ecomonumental" condition.

An architectural proposal characterized by:

• Address both what is between things as things in themselves: public space [a hall, a plaza, a terrace] is therefore the primary object.
• The identification of the variability, the change as a key ingredient of architecture. With emphasis on the design of objects rather than the definition of definitive architectural programs.
• The commitment between scales. The project its determined and affects many areas beyond those granted by reason of mere physical contiguity. A project with translation capability, traveling between scales.
• Understand and feel simultaneously different scales and fields of perception and action.
• Acting on the near, immediate, tactile, and understand at the same time many other receptacles and dimensions that get modified with user actions, it is a flexible work program for the upcoming years.

+ ACTIVE ECOLOGY:

To the old nostalgic or pseudobucolic ecology (freezing landscapes, territories and environments) we propose a bold ecology; reclassified to be reformulated. Based not in a fearful and non-intervention purely defensive -resistant- but in a no-tax, projective and rating -(re)promotive- intervention in synergy with the environment and also with new technologies. Not only possibilities but (re)positivist.

We propose:

• An ecology where sustainability means interaction.
• Where Nature is is also artificiality.
• Where the landscape is topography.
• Where energy is information and technology the vehicle to development.
• Where development is recycling and evolution is genetic.
• Where environment is the field.

Where retain involve always intervene.

The selection of vegetal species to exhibit took into account the degree of maintenance as well as the main agricultural products of the state of Sinaloa and the natural species of native vegetation. In this way we have that public space becomes in a same gesture in museum-park-public space. Presenting the exhibiting object in real time with their processes and characteristics of agricultural activity, where the user can directly see how these are conducted and its temporality. Species selection also took into consideration the color palette that these species may have throughout the year generating a “living park” an ever-changing exhibition and intervention which always seem dynamic and not static representation of agricultural processes.

Agriculture Museum, rendering courtesy of a10studio

Agriculture Museum, rendering courtesy of a10studio

Agriculture Museum - Floor plan, drawing courtesy of a10studio

+ Project credits / data

Architectural project: a10studio + lab07
Project team: Mariano Arias-Diez, Luis Alarcón, Carlos Marín, Hugo Sánchez, Mia Modak
Type: institutional, museum and park
Location: Culiacan, Sinaloa (Mexico)
Area: 45,000 m2
Project year: 2010
Client: Instituto Municipal de Planeacion (IMPLAN) de Culiacan
Status: Competition finalist

Landscape architecture: Hugo Sánchez / ENTORNO taller de paisaje
Structural engineer: Ing. Fernando Alvarez / Construcciones FASA
Rendering and digital visualization: Carlos Marín / lab07
Lighting design: a10studio

s.Oliver Headquarters, image courtesy of KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten

s.Oliver Headquarters by German firm KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten is a winning project in 2006 and built in 2008. The design aims to give the new building an identity and reflect the s.Oliver Group’s dynamism and zeitgeist.

+ Project description courtesy of KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten

The new building housing the headquarters of the s.Oliver Group in Rottendorf near Würzburg provided an opportunity to construct a tailor-made building that provided an identity and reflected the company's dynamism and zeitgeist. The design that was implemented does justice to this and fulfills the following overarching goals:

• A symbol of the s.Oliver Group on its own grounds
• A working environment that promotes and radiates creative output
• A communicative and inviting edifice
• Flexible, cost-effective office space

Location

The location of the s.Oliver Group in Rottendorf is dominated by a heterogeneous ensemble of buildings. Large logistics buildings and offices set the tone of the site. The basic idea of the identity-giving headquarters sets new standards for the urban planning arrangement, thereby creating excitement and not uniformity. The design adopts the principle and consistently develops it through its independent formulation of the building.

s.Oliver Headquarters, image courtesy of KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten

Concept

Pure & Basic – A pure and functionally optimized building provides space for creativity and ideas so that nothing stands in the way of visions. The clear, restrained formal language serves as a projection surface and passepartout for the S.Oliver fashion world. The large shape liberates itself in contrast with the volume of the logistics halls surrounding it. The inserted courtyards structure the building and link it to the campus. With their inviting gesture they emphasize the building's openness. Large windows accentuate the sculpture and orchestrate the inner world of the headquarters.

s.Oliver Headquarters, image courtesy of KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten

Sculpture

A compact edifice is divided by two inserted courtyards. The one on the east references the adjoining existing building and creates a green recreation zone that spills onto the mini-park that follows the course of the brook. This enables both buildings to be experienced as belonging together. The northern courtyard houses the foyer with the main entrance, which is emphasized by the focal point of the raised shape. Highlighted flooring extending from inside the foyer to the car park gives visitors here "the red carpet treatment" and guides them inside. A uniform surface turns the building sections into a single main unit. Individual building sections are divided off by insertions in the volume. The building's facades are given additional structure by means of an emphasis on individual zones.

s.Oliver Headquarters, image courtesy of KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten

Materiality and the Facade

High-quality finishes are inline with the company's standards.

Horizontal strips dominate the building's appearance. In areas with anodized aluminum balustrades the strips in window areas are alternating flush rotary wings and window glazing, as well as windows on all the building corners. On the inside, design rules. Stylish furniture serves as an eye catcher from afar and creates everyday meeting points. The interior finishes were selected with the leitmotiv of the pure and functional in mind and in line with the high standards. On the walls white dominates, in combination with the fair-faced concrete surface of the load-bearing elements: supports and cores. In the foyer and communicative areas the floor comprises large-format slabs of natural stone. The offices were given industrial smoked oak parquet flooring. The exposed conference room above the entrance was fitted with a highly floral in red, the corporate color.

s.Oliver Headquarters - Floor plan, drawing courtesy of KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten

Access

A flexible department structure enables central access.

The communicative zones with the adjoining communal facilities and the central access form the focal point of the building. A spectacular oval staircase and two elevators link all the storeys with the foyer. The ideal and efficient alignment of the requisite stairwells enables short vertical communication paths.

Building Structure

Small-section layout creates flexible-use wings.

The footprint enables a wide range of office types but nonetheless functions ideally for the open-plan offices initially envisaged. Access channels running through the foyer, which is the height of the entire building, enable four facility units at the end of each of the storeys with no through pedestrian traffic. These units are intended for combination and open-plan areas. Various departmental structures and connecting areas can be created by means of coupling zones.

Working Worlds

Flexible-use sets of two offices – With standard-size views the work areas are located along the façade. The contour of the building is conceived to be as long as possible to create the maximum amount of naturally lit space. Alongside the infrastructure the middle of the building, its communicative center, houses the sanitary areas, access points, as well as meeting points, lounges, and flexible-use areas. These zones are allocated to the inserted courtyards so as to guarantee natural lighting that corresponds to their use. Across this middle zone users can choose their own routes between the departments and their own furnishing configurations.

Fire Prevention

Clear structuring of the building into usage units – The building is divided into seven large units 210-400 sq. m. in size. As such the individual areas can be divided up or furnished without any special fire prevention measures. The escape routes consist of four mandatory stairwells and an escape balcony. The mandatory corridors are kept to a minimum.

Load-Bearing Structure Building

The five-storey administration building represents a compact, almost rectangular edifice, which on two sides is intersected by up to 17-meter wide courtyards. Throughout the building this produces 14-meter wide wings, which are structured by rows of peripheral and room supports. As of the first floor these supports bear 30-centimeter thick flat ceilings used for concrete core cooling. There are no room supports o the ground floor and the most extreme row of peripheral supports is positioned further inside. This enables girders to absorb the missing room supports on the ground floor. Two stairwells and a stair and elevator core brace the building against horizontal forces.

Energy-Efficiency and Sustainability

The ceilings in the building boast high-performance core concrete cooling. Being installed close to the ceiling they ensure maximum performance. The ventilation system selected enables a heat recovery rate clearly in excess of 80%. In order to make use of geothermal energy 60 depth probes each 90 meters long were deposited in the ground. In conjunction with heat pumps these provide heating in winter and cooling in summer, such that the building has no recourse to fossil fuels. Great importance was placed on environmental compatibility in the selection of materials. No tropical woods were used. The wood and stone employed originated and were produced in Germany and Europe.

+ Project credits / data

Architect: KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten
Project: s.Oliver Headquarters
Location: Rottendorf, Würzburg, German
Client: s.Oliver Bernd Freier GmbH & Co. KG
Floor area: 13,800 m²
Cubic: 53.300 m³
Competition: 08/2006, 1st prize
Completion: 08/2008
Photographer: Jean-Luc Valentin

+ All images and drawings courtesy of KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten | Photo by Jean-Luc Valentin