10RCM, image courtesy Spaceworkers

Reinventing the space that time stole was our task this time.

The history of intervention is simple. A house, safe haven for a family of four elements, no longer has the space needed for their everyday experiences.

10RCM, image courtesy Spaceworkers

The old subdivision of “social area” of the house, where reigned the space static and mono-functional, has now given rise to new spaces with dynamic ability to clump together and become a single, increasing the versatility of this area and making it more luminous. In the private area of the house, we clean corridors and corners of their excesses, we have walls that are cabinets in order to fix the many things we needed to fix.

10RCM, image courtesy Spaceworkers

This rationalization, has provided all areas of greater breadth and versatility, making the old spaces have a new life, full of light and color.

A new house inside an old container, full of memories, and with many new stories to tell.

10RCM - Ground floor plan, drawing courtesy Spaceworkers

10RCM - First floor plan, drawing courtesy Spaceworkers

+ Project facts

Code: 10RCM
Project: Interior
Year: 2010-2011
Size: 120m2
Address: Rua Dr. Julio Gesta nº 63 | Matosinhos | Portugal

Author: spaceworkers® | http://www.spaceworkers.pt
principal architects: henrique marques, rui dinis
Architects: rui rodrigues, sérgio rocha, pedro silva, vasco giesta
Finance director: carla duarte – cfo
Photographer : joão morgado®

Project Materials:
Floor: Industrial Parquet – Abcut®
Walls: Plasterboard + Paint
Sanitary Ware: Roca
Taps: Ofa
Glass solutions of: Baltarvidro.
Furniture: One home design
Light: Osvaldo Matos
Woodwork: Eu.faço, lda

+ All images and drawing courtesy spaceworkers

Spira Performing Arts Center, image courtesy Wingardh Arkitektkontor | Photo by Ulf Celander

Spira Performing Arts Center, image courtesy Wingardh Arkitektkontor | Photo by Åke Eson Lindman

Spira has four different performing arts venues: a main concert hall that seats 910, a 450-seat theater, a 200-seat black box, and a 200-seat café stage. The building is situated on an artificial peninsula jutting out into Lake Munksjön, right in the center of downtown Jönköping.

Spira Performing Arts Center, image courtesy Wingardh Arkitektkontor | Photo by Åke Eson Lindman

Spira Performing Arts Center, image courtesy Wingardh Arkitektkontor | Photo by Åke Eson Lindman

The layout follows from a foyer that opens to the west and the sun as it sets over the lake, and from the four main halls strung together along the foyer. To the east lie workshops for everyday activities, and another public building will eventually be erected adjacent to Spira's east side.

Spira Performing Arts Center, image courtesy Wingardh Arkitektkontor | Photo by Gert Wingårdh

The elevations are vertically striped in opaque bands of white and orange, with transparent bands of clear, orange, and yellow-tinted glass. It is the color of molten glass as it leaves the furnaces of a glassworks—a celebration of Sweden's glassmaking region.

Spira Performing Arts Center, image courtesy Wingardh Arkitektkontor | Photo by Åke Eson Lindman

The interior is finished in warm wood, with a concert hall wrapped in wood beneath a starry night sky.

Spira Performing Arts Center - Level 2 floor plan, image courtesy Wingardh Arkitektkontor

+ Project facts

Spira performing arts center, Jönköping, Sweden
First prize in an invited competition 2007, completed 2011.

Design:
Wingårdh Arkitektkontor AB through Gert Wingårdh, Jonas Edblad (design), Ingrid Gunnarsson (competition team)

Team:
Andreas Henriksson, Peter Öhman, Claes Berglöf, Viktoria Wallin, Josefine Kastberg, Foued Hajjam, Therese Ahlström, Aron Davidsson, Anna Palm, Dan Danielsson, Helena Toresson, Sara Helder, Viktor Alm, Björn Nilsson, Anna Nyborg Lafveskans, Charlotta Rosell, Jennie Stolpe, Daniel Frickeus, Fredrik Gullberg, Pål Ericksson, Ola Frödell, Robert Hendberg, Peter Sierts

Consultants:

Acoustics: Akustikon, Norconsult AB
Stage equipment: Teaterkonsult Hasselblad
Landscape: Ramböll
Structure: COWI
Electrical: WSP Systems
Lighting: WSP Ljusdesign
HVAC: Sweco Systems

Glass artist Ingegerd Råman designed the lobby's pendant lamps "Ouattro 117" ? a reference to the many etched surfaces that diffuse its light.

Artist Milo Lavén designed the "Soundflower" – an outdoor art installation that reacts to the footsteps in its proximity by emitting light and sound.

Client: Landstingsfastigheter, Jönköping County
Type of contract: Design-and-construct contract
Contractor: PEAB
Gross area: ca 15 000 sqm
Year of construction: 2009–2011

Photographer: Ulf Celander, Åke Eson Lindman, Gert Wingårdh

+ All images and drawings courtesy Wingårdh Arkitektkontor

Poland-based design studio WAMHOUSE recently has created the  new wall unit “WAFELEK”.

WAFELEK wall unit, image courtesy WAMHOUSE

WAFELEK wall unit, image courtesy WAMHOUSE

The 490-foot-tall Beach and Howe mixed-use tower by BIG + Westbank + Dialog + Cobalt + PFS + Buro Happold + Glotman Simpson and local architect James Cheng marks the entry point to downtown Vancouver, forming a welcoming gateway to the city, while adding another unique structure to the Vancouver skyline.

Vancouver Beach and Howe St, image courtesy BIG

BIG's proposal, named after its location on the corner of Howe & Beach next to the Granville Street Bridge in downtown Vancouver, calls for 600 residential units occupying the 49-story tower, which would become one of the city's fourth tallest buildings. The tower is situated on a nine-story podium base offering market-rental housing with a mix of commercial and retail space. BIG was commissioned by Canada's premier real estate developer Westbank, established in 1992, with over $10 billion of projects completed or under development, including the Shangri-La luxury hotels in Vancouver and Toronto.

Vancouver Beach and Howe St - Conceptual diagram, drawing courtesy BIG

We have brought together the best talent available in Vancouver and Europe to create a truly world class project that will enrich not only the particular neighborhood, but also the city and its quest to become creative, sustainable and affordable city. Architecturally, the Beach and Howe tower will introduce a new building typology to the Vancouver skyline and will create a dramatic gateway to downtown Vancouver that speaks to the emerging creative economy in the city.

Ian Gillespie, President, Westbank

Vancouver Beach and Howe St, image courtesy BIG

The tower takes its shape after the site's complex urban conditions aiming to optimize the conditions for its future inhabitants in the air as well as on the street level. At its base, the footprint of the tower is conditioned by concerns for two significant neighboring elements, including a 30-meter setback from the Granville bridge which ensures that no residents will have windows and balconies in the middle of heavy traffic as well as concerns for sunlight to an adjacent park which limits how far south the building can be constructed. As a result the footprint is restricted to a small triangle.

The Beach and Howe tower is a contemporary descendant of the Flatiron Building in New York City – reclaiming the lost spaces for living as the tower escapes the noise and traffic at its base. In the tradition of Flatiron, Beach and Howe's architecture is not the result of formal excess or architectural idiosyncrasies, but rather a child of its circumstances: the trisected site and the concerns for neighboring buildings and park spaces.

Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG

Vancouver Beach and Howe St, image courtesy BIG

As the tower ascends, it clears the noise, exhaust, and visual invasion of the Granville Bridge. BIG's design reclaims the lost area as the tower clears the zone of influence of the bridge, gradually cantilevering over the site. This movement turns the inefficient triangle into an optimal rectangular floor plate, increasing the desirable spaces for living at its top, while freeing up a generous public space at its base. The resultant silhouette has a unique appearance that changes from every angle and resembles a curtain being drawn aside, welcoming people as they enter the city from the bridge.

Vancouver Beach and Howe St, image courtesy BIG

The tower and base are a reinvention of the local typology, known as "Vancouverism." In this typology, slender towers are grouped with mixed-use podiums and street walls that define human-scale urban environments. The aim is to preserve view cones through the city while activating the pedestrian street.

Thomas Christoffersen, Partner-in-Charge, BIG

The tower's podium is a mixed-use urban village with three triangular blocks that are composed of intimately-scaled spaces for working, shopping, and leisure which face onto public plazas and pathways. The additional public space adds to the existing streets, giving the neighborhood a variety of open and covered outdoor spaces of various scales which transform the site under the Granville Bridge into a dynamic and iconic mixed-use neighborhood hub.

Vancouver Beach and Howe St, image courtesy BIG

Vancouver has already embarked upon an urban experiment in creating a super dense residential downtown – to increase pedestrian activity and street life. With this project we attempt to continue this process of densification by reclaiming a site beneath the bridges that would otherwise be lost as a lifeless "black hole" in the urban fabric. The diagonal canopies of the vehicular flows above create a new form of weather protected urban space, turning the large infrastructure in to a niche for social life.

Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG

Vancouver Beach and Howe St, image courtesy BIG

The courtyards created by the building volumes, roofs and terraces are all designed to enhance views from the Granville Bridge and the residential units above. The canted, triangular clusters of green roofs create a highly graphic and iconic gateway to and from the downtown core, reinforcing the City of Vancouver's focus on sustainable cities. The exterior façades respond to the various solar exposures which is integral to the overall sustainability concept. The building will strive for LEED Gold Certification.

+ About Westbank

Established in 1992 and with over $10 billion of projects completed or under development, Westbank is active across Canada in a diversity of product types from luxury condominiums, rental apartment office, retail, hotel, non-market housing and industrial. The main focus is on large mixed use projects involving highly complex entitlement processes. The company is best known for being the leading luxury residential developer in Canada, along with being the owner/developer of the finest hotels in Canada. www.westbankcorp.com

+ Project facts

NAME: Beach and Howe St.
CLIENT: Westbank Projects Corp.
LOCATION: Vancouver, Canada
SIZE: 653,890 sf / 60,670 m2

COLLABORATORS: Dialog, Cobalt Engineering, Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg Urban Design, Buro Happold, Glotman Simpson, James KM Cheng Architects
PARTNERS-IN-CHARGE: Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Christoffersen
PROJECT LEADER: Agustin Perez-Torres
TEAM: Julianne Gola, Marcella Martinez, Chris Malcolm, Karol Borkowski, Michael Taylor, Alina Tamosiunaite, David Brown, Tobias Hjortdal, Alexandra Gustafson

+ All images and drawings courtesy BIG