A house in the garden

Green facades are by no means a new feature in architecture. Over the last couple of years, they have been popping up everywhere, largely due to the highly influential projects of Patrick Blanc. And even though the most remarkable feature of this private laboratory in Paris is, in fact, a green facade. But R&Sie(n) took a slightly different approach with their greenery.

Normally, the "green" of a green facade is attached directly to the facade itself. In this case, the architects put a facade of 1200 ferns on the outside of the building, with some space in between. This has some advantages as far as the growth of plants goes, I presume, but the main advantage is architectural. The facade material (the ferns, in this case) can be placed in front of windows, thus completely camouflaging the building behind the plants. Because of the space between the window and the green facade, there is also a pleasant effect from the interior.



To get the (diffuse) light into the laboratory, a cunning system of blown glass beakers is used. By strategically placing these in between the ferns, light can be reflected to intrude into the building. That's not the only purpose of the beakers, however: rain water is collected in them, and they are used to grow the ferns soil-less. And the combination of these hand-crafted pieces of grass with the lucious green ferns works like a charm: both from the exterior as for the interior. Inside the laboratory, you don't have the experience of being enclosed in a Parisian court, but it gives you the experience of being enclosed in your private little hideway in nature. And the neighbors don't look upon yet another extension of the existing building block, but they see a lovely (albeit slightly wild) green garden. That's a win-win situation, isn't it?



I found this project on arch daily.

Swoosh pavillion

Some time ago, I wrote a post about the [C]-space pavillion that some students of the Architectural Association in London designed and constructed on Bedford Square in London.

It seems as though a herd of pavillions is slowly taking over the square. A group of second and third year students - lead by Charles Walker and Martin Self - recently designed and constructed a pavillion, aptly dubbed the "Swoosh Pavillion". Even though this name seems to be a reference to the well-known logo by Nike (which is also called the swoosh), I am pretty much positive that the pavillion isn't sponsored by the sporting goods mogul. I believe that the name seems to relate to the dynamic nature of that logo.
Because, simply said: the Swoosh Pavillion is a sleek, dynamic form. It swirls itself around a lamppost on Bedford Square. In the centre, the pavillion is closed off by a dense structure of pieces of timber. In the outskirts, the spiral becomes looser, transforming the overhanging enclosure into benches.

The pavillion started out as a scripted 3D model, I assume. Therefore, it is quite an impressive feat that the pavillion was constructed by manual labor. It's always really good to see how an experiment in a computer program is transformed into something that can actually be built. The fact that it is done by a bunch of students makes it even more impressive...


The images come from dezeen.com.

Svalbard University Research Centre - Jarmund/Vigsnæs Architects

The Svalbard University Research Centre is on located in quite a harsh climate, somewhere on an island in the north of Norway. The artic weather conditions are rather demanding of a building, and with this project the architects respond in a rather specific way. For instance, the volume of the building hovers above the ground on pillars so as not to disturb the permafrost-sealed soil on which its foundations rest.
The polygonal shape is not only intriguing looking and fitting the landscape of its surroundings, but is actually streamlined according to wind loads and wind efficiency.

The programme of the building is also responding to the harsh climate: inside the fragmented volume is an inverted campus of various functions under one roof. Well, that makes sense, since the climate doesn't quite supply a nice atmosphere for cosy inside-outside relations. The interior is just as intriguing in form as the outside, with loads of spacial extremities and visual relations between the parts.


More images can be found on the website of Jarmund/Vigsnæs Architects.