S Cube Chalet, image courtesy AGi architects | Photo by Nelson Garrido

S Cube family chalet is made up of three intertwined beach houses. The owners -two brothers and their sister each with their own families- want to continue enjoying the same exceptional environment in which they grew up, but with complete independency and privacy from each other.

S Cube Chalet, image courtesy AGi architects | Photo by Nelson Garrido

For these reasons, the design of these three small houses calls for a duplicated program, which maintains privacy, while benefiting from outdoor areas and sea views, by the use of several terraces.

S Cube Chalet, image courtesy AGi architects | Photo by Nelson Garrido

Architectural solutions proposed by AGi

In order to create private and independent houses for each family -comprising of three young couples with two small children each-, AGi architects have divided the plot into two units, composed of two houses that are mirror images of each other, named S2 and S3. These units are separated by a staircase leading towards the third house, located at the higher level. The third house is positioned on top and across from the two residences, enjoying a large roof terrace with direct views towards the sea. Each of the three houses enjoys an individual outdoor area that is open to the sky, privacy from its neighbor, and extended sea views.

S Cube Chalet, image courtesy AGi architects | Photo by Nelson Garrido

The highly dense program in the intertwined houses is manipulated to create outdoor spaces which harvest the prevailing winds and enhance their circulation within the courtyards, allowing people to comfortably reside in them. The building is carefully situated to protect its exposure to the sun on the southern façade, whilst increasing shaded space on the northern side to frame views out to the sea as well as create a pleasant outdoor environment.

S Cube Chalet, image courtesy AGi architects | Photo by Nelson Garrido

The outdoor spaces on the ground floor and the roof terrace of the third house on the upper level are the main distinguishing elements and spaces of this project; from which the three houses are organized around them. They are beach houses designed to optimize and enhance the outdoor experience.

Program

S Cube chalet is developed into three levels:

S2 and S3 houses comprise of mirrored program, occupying two levels:

• Ground floor. Main bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room and a large courtyard open to the sea.
• First floor. Two bedrooms, bathroom and a terrace with side views to the sea, designed as a playing area for children. Terraces of both houses are visually separated by a grid.

S1 house is developed in two separate levels illustrated below:

• First floor. Main bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room, and a terrace connected to the S3 terrace.
• Second floor. Two bedrooms, bathroom and a large terrace facing the sea.

S Cube Chalet, image courtesy AGi architects | Photo by Nelson Garrido

Materials

The flooring, stairs and dividing wall between S1 and S2 are all are cladded using Indian sandstone. Interior walls and ceilings are finished using plaster and paint, whilst handrails are cladded with wood.

The interiors have been designed by AGi architects. All materials used in the S Cube project are locally manufactured. The loose furniture produced by Spanish brands, supplied by Gunni & Trentino.

+ Project facts

Project Name: S Cube Chalet
Type: Residential | 750 m2
Location: Kuwait
Date: 2007-2011
Cost: Confidential
Photographer: Nelson Garrido

Architect: AGi architects
Design Team:
Joaquin Pérez-Goicoechea
Nasser B. Abulhasan
Salvador Cejudo

Architectural team:
Robert A. Varghese
Abdul Hafiz Mohammed
Mónica Marqués
José Ángel del Campo

+ All images and drawings courtesy AGi architects

Image courtesy BIG

Team BIG+FREAKS freearchitects, dUCKS scéno, Khephren Ingénierie, VPEAS, ALTO Ingénierie, Vincent Hedont, PBNL, Mryk & Moriceau, Ph.A wins the competition to design a new 12 000 m2 cultural center on the riverfront of Bordeaux, merging three cultural institutions into one single building.

Conceptual diagram, drawing courtesy BIG

The new Maison de l’Économie Créative et de la Culture en Aquitaine, MÉCA, located on the historical riverfront of Bordeaux will house three regional visual and performing arts agencies FRAC, the ECLA and the OARA in one single institution. The Regional Council of Bordeaux selected the winning team among proposals from SANAA, the Toulouse-based firm W-Architectures and Bordeaux-based FLINT.

Conceptual diagram, drawing courtesy BIG

BIG's proposal arranges the new center for contemporary art, the performing arts institution and the center for literature and movies around a public space open towards the city of Bordeaux and the Garonne River. The building is conceived as a single loop of public space and cultural institutions as the pavement of the promenade rises to form the roof of the main lobbies, ascends vertically along the stage tower of OARA, bridges across the promenade with the sky lit galleries of the FRAC and returns vertically to the ground at the archives of the ECLA in order to reunite with the waterfront promenade.

Image courtesy BIG

When a region or a city invests millions in a major new cultural institution – it often ends up benefiting only the informed few that already have an interest in the arts. Not only does the MÉCA spill its activities into the public realm and the urban room, but the public is also invited to walk around, through, above and below the new cultural gateway. By inviting the art into the city and the city into the arts, the MÉCA will provide opportunities for new hybrids of cultural and social life beyond the specific definitions of its constituent parts.

Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.

Conceptual diagram, drawing courtesy BIG

The urban room allows everyday life of Bordeaux to flow through its generous frame along the promenade, injecting the art into the city and the city life into the building. The multiple ramps and stairs of the building create an institution that is publicly accessible and welcoming on the inside as well as the outside. The urban room and the informal seating of the stairs will make the MÉCA a lively place and a natural extension of the life along the Quai de Paludate street and the new promenade. During festivals or other special occasions in the city, the outside of the MÉCA can be transformed into a stage for outdoor concerts, theatrical spectacles or art installations.

Image courtesy BIG

Image courtesy BIG

The urban room is at once a frame for the artwork, a stage for the performances, a screening room for the media collections and most perhaps most importantly an open room for the urban life of Bordeaux to invade and engage with the arts.

Andreas Klok Pedersen, Partner-in-Charge, BIG.

Image courtesy BIG

Tailored to accommodate the proportions of the performance spaces, the backstage requirements, the archives and the art galleries, the building is tailored to the needs and desires of its individual tenants while fused to form a single urban frame. The building and promenade is clad in the limestone which constitutes the majority of Bordeaux's architecture. As if carved from the same material as the city itself – the stone is promenade and façade, stair and terrace, roof and ceiling all together.

The three regional entities composing the program are idiomatic to the French public way of supporting and promoting culture all over the territory. Working on the MÉCA building in Bordeaux is a great occasion to cross views and balance between international references and local issues.

Guillaume Aubry, Cyril Gauthier & Yves Pasquet, Founding Partners, FREAKS freearchitects

+ ABOUT BIG

BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group is a leading international partnership of architects, designers, builders and thinkers operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and development. The office is currently involved in a large number of projects throughout Europe, North America and Asia. BIG's architecture emerges out of a careful analysis of how contemporary life constantly evolves and changes, not least due to the influence of multicultural ex¬change, global economic flows and communication technologies that together require new ways of architectural and urban organiza¬tion. BIG is led by partners – Bjarke Ingels, Andreas Klok Pedersen, Finn Nørkjær, David Zahle, Jakob Lange, Thomas Christoffersen and Managing Partners, Sheela Maini Søgaard and Kai-Uwe Bergmann – with offices in Copenhagen and New York. In all our actions we try to move the focus from the little details to the BIG picture.

+ ABOUT FREAKS

FREAKS freearchitects is a Paris-based architecture firm lead by three architects favouring prospection, research and experimentation through projects and building process practices from small scale art installations to large scale architecture competitions. Although nowadays their built projects are mostly located in France, FREAKS’s partners have lived and experienced a wide range of abroad working contexts such as San Francisco, Tokyo, Beijing, Berlin, Mumbai, Singapore, Istanbul… Those sometimes chaotic urban surroundings drove them to integrate to their practice a rich and confident vocabulary of urban scenarios and architectural aesthetics. FREAKS freearchitects has been awarded the AJAP price from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication in 2010.

+ Project facts

Name: MÉCA – Maison de l'Économie Créative et de la Culture en Aquitaine
Type: Competition
Size: 12 350 m2
Client: Conseil régional d'Aquitaine
Collaborators: FREAKS freearchitects, dUCKS scéno, Khephren Ingénierie, VPEAS, ALTO Ingénierie, Vincent Hedont, PBNL, Mryk & Moriceau, Ph.A
Location: Bordeaux, France

Partner in Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Andreas Klok Pedersen
Project Leader: Gabrielle Nadeau
Project Architect: Jan Magasanik
Team: Édouard Champelle, Lorenzo Boddi, Yang Du, Karol Borkowski

+ All images and drawings courtesy BIG

Ben van Berkel / UNStudio‘s Centre for Virtual Engineering (ZVE) realised and receives Gold certification from the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB).

Virtual Engineering in the New Inventive Economy, image courtesy UNStudio

The Centre for Virtual Engineering (ZVE) is a prime example of what I like to refer to as ‘attainabilty’. The building combines the affordable with the sustainable through a combination of its compact building volume, materialisation, flexible organisation, efficient ground use and numerous energy saving installations.

Ben van Berkel

Virtual Engineering in the New Inventive Economy, image courtesy UNStudio

Contemporary companies, particularly those in the creative industries, are bringing about substantial change in the ways in which we work today. They are fully embracing changes which promote and stimulate creative work processes through communication, experimentation and new forms of collaboration. There is an understanding that – alongside ever improving connections to external information resources – encouraging communication and knowledge sharing within individual companies increases the potential for more creative and experimental approaches to work. This results in a better understanding of the potential for the optimal organisation of human resources and in turn, a workforce that is stimulated to play an essential part in the creation of improved output.

Virtual Engineering in the New Inventive Economy, image courtesy UNStudio

This understanding is no longer limited to the creative industries alone however. As one of the most important internationally operating research institutes in the world, the Fraunhofer Institute requires a building which not only accommodates and reflects the work it carries out, but also stimulates its workforce and encourages new working methodologies.

UNStudio's design response is to apply its research into the potential to expand contemporary understandings of new working environments into a wider arena and thereby affect a design approach that creates working environments which stimulate communication, experimentation and creativity through a new type of office building. The the Centre for Virtual Engineering ZVE becomes a prototype building; one which not only incorporates a fully inclusive approach to sustainability, but which also provides an example of the role that architecture can play in the working environments of the future.

Virtual Engineering in the New Inventive Economy, image courtesy UNStudio

Centre for Virtual Engineering ZVE Fraunhofer Institute, Stuttgart, Germany, 2006-2012

Located on the research campus of the Fraunhofer institute in Stuttgart Vaihingen, the Centre for Virtual Engineering ZVE specializes in the investigation of different multidisciplinary work flows. UNStudio worked in collaboration with Asplan from Kaiserslautern on the architectural services for the Centre. UNStudio was responsible for the design development, the required 3D-planning and implementation during all planning processes. Asplan was responsible for the development of the construction documents and the site supervision.

Virtual Engineering in the New Inventive Economy - Spatial configuration, drawing courtesy UNStudio

All parts of the programme were implemented into the spatial organisation of the building. The diagrammatic approach employed combines the laboratory and research functions with the public exhibition areas and a scenographic routing of the visitors into an open and communicative building concept. The different working areas are distributed with regard to the needs of the employees. There are no spatially separated departments along the band of laboratories. Instead, working areas merge into each other, promoting interdisciplinary work practices.

The scenographic visitors routing is also an essential element of the design. Visitors move from the multimedia entrance hall, up the stairs which diagonally cross the atrium. The stairs serve as a guiding line which is emphasised by the addition of a bright colour concept. Colour is used both in the facade and interior to distinguish the various programmatic elements, such as offices or laboratories. On the stairs a gradient is used to further aid in way-finding. In this way, not only a space of communication emerges but also an interface for visitors and employees. Returning to the starting point, the Virtual Reality area forms the highlight of the visitor tour.

Virtual Engineering in the New Inventive Economy, image courtesy UNStudio

Construction and design elements are integrated within a coherent structure with open and closed elements. The geometry of the floor plan, consisting of curved and straight elements, dissolves into the saw tooth geometry of the facade whilst maintaining the effect of a continuously transforming surface.

Gold certification from the DGNB (German Sustainable Building Council)

An exceptional level of sustainability was a key consideration from the outset. The building structure partially consists of bubble deck ceilings, providing both an economical alternative to the more commonly used concrete ceilings and reduction in weight, allowing for column free spaces. Enhanced technical elements are also integrated into the structure: concrete core activation, false floors and the arrangement of the sprinkler tubes within the false floors minimises the amount of visible installations whilst maintaining their flexibility. The air supply to the deeper areas also occurs partly through air channels within the false floor. Air extraction occurs within the shafts.

Virtual Engineering in the New Inventive Economy, image courtesy UNStudio

The plot for the Centre for Virtual Engineering ZVE has been used to its maximum in terms of development potential. The rounded shape and optimised building envelope provides a 7% smaller contour than that of a rectangular form of the same area. This also results in a better facade area to volume ratio. The amount of glass facade is only 32%. All spaces along the facade can be ventilated directly by operable window elements. Ceilings without any lintels make it possible for daylight to reflect deep into the spaces, which are additionally supported by daylight lamellas while the sun screens are down. All installations are located within accessible shafts.

Low maintenance, separable, and recyclable materials have been used for the skeleton as well as for the interior and facade construction.

The Centre for Virtual Engineering ZVE building has been awarded a Gold certification by the DGNB.

+ Project facts

Centre for Virtual Engineering ZVE Fraunhofer Institute
Stuttgart, Germany, 2006-2012

Client: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
Location: Fraunhofer Campus, Nobelstrasse 12, 70569 Stuttgart
Building surface: GFA  5.782 m2
Building volume: 27.221 m3
Programme:  Offices and laboratories

+ Credits

UNStudio/ASPlan

UNStudio:
Ben van Berkel, Harm Wassink with Florian Heinzelmann, Tobias Wallisser, Marc  Herschel, Kristoph Nowak and Christiane Reuther, Aleksandra Apolinarska, Marc Hoppermann, Moritz Reichartz, Norman Hack, Marcin Koltunski, Peter Irmscher

ASPlan:
Horst Ermel, Leopold Horinek, Lutz Weber, Stefan Hausladen, Jürgen Bär, Gunawan Bestari, Joachim Deis, Bernd Hasse, Marlene Hertzler, Michael Kapouranis, Vladislav Litz, Thomas Thrun

+ Advisors

BKSI: Structural Engineering
Rentschler und Riedesser: Mechanical Engineering
IB Müller & Bleher: Electric Engineering
Gänssle + Hehr: Landscape Architect
Brüssau Bauphysik: (Accoustics, Energy ENEV, Building Simulation)
Halfkann + Kirchner: Fire Safety Advisor
Vermessung Hils (topographical survey)
Dr. Alexander Szichta (geological survey)
KOP Real Estate Solutions (DGNB)
IDF Global: Renderings

+ All images and drawings courtesy courtesy UNStudio