Breathing concrete: Smokers’ pavilion as a complex organism

This concrete pavilion designed by Gianni Botsford Architects stands in a private yard in Zurich. Despite its materiality, it does not seem either massive or monolithic thanks to a special manufacturing method for translucent concrete. This means that it is possible to experience the natural environment while enjoying a smoke.

Architect: Gianni Botsford Architects, London
Location: private Home, Zurich, Switzerland

Special effects in the pavilion: an unusual interplay of light both day and night.
Photos: James Morris

A pavilion is meant to protect its users from the weather. What makes the sleek, restrained design by Gianni Botsford Architects unique may not be perceptible at first glance. This quiet space stands out from other pavilions because the material used has a particular effect. The shell may seem closed in, but users do not feel cut off from their surroundings. On the contrary, from the inside of the shelter, they can perceive both garden and sunlight thanks to the material, known as translucent concrete or light-transmitting concrete.

The pavilion opens to the garden.

With this project, the architects wanted to offset the diversity of the garden with a particular accent. Although the pavilion may not provide a visual complement to the surrounding greenery, its relationship with nature can nevertheless be understood as symbiotic. The garden gives life to the interior of the pavilion, making the concrete space appear to live as though it were a natural organism in itself.

The translucent concrete pavilion is based on a sophisticated concept and complex precision work. What looks simple and sleek is the result of innovative, state-of-the-art technology. Translucent concrete is made of fine-grained concrete and glass-fibre mats poured alternately in layers. The more dense the fibres, the more translucent the final product. There can be no question that this material was perfect for the architects, who developed a system in cooperation with GBA, Tall Engineers, Litracon and Hammerlein. The shelter space is made of five plates of translucent concrete, creating the floor, three walls and roof. These plates are 80 mm thick and gain stability from dowel connections and exactly placed stainless-steel reinforcements, meaning that no secondary structure was required.

Axonometry: Gianni Botsford Architects

This material, known as Litracon or Light-Transmitting Concrete, was patented in 2001 by Áron Losonczi. Here it provides the pavilion with a delicate feel. The simplicity of structure and form stand in direct opposition to the complexity of the material. The concrete box rests serenely in the owner’s garden and allows the lake and surrounding mountains to take centre stage.

Site map: Gianni Botsford Architects

Elevation: Gianni Botsford Architects

Changes to the light alter the effects on the surface of the concrete, creating a spectrum ranging from heavy to light, from dense to permeable, from monochrome to colourful. It is these ever-changing effects created by the material, light and shadows that make the concrete pavilion appear to breathe alongside the plants and animals in the garden.

Projcet data

Client: private
Completion: 2013
Costs: £65.000
Usable space: 8.3 m²
Landscape architecture: Todd Longstaffe-Gowan
In co-operation with: TALL Engineers, London & Hammerlein Ingenieurbau GmbH, HTB Ingenieure + Planer AG
Translucent concrete: Litracon Bt., Ungarn
Award: Wallpaper Design Award 2015

Staggered rear facade: Whitney Museum extension by Renzo Piano

At a prominent place between High Line Park and the Hudson River, Renzo Piano has created the generously-dimensioned Whitney Museum in Manhattan. His structure is crowned by a series of staggered terraces that serve not only as sunny places for passing time but also as open-air extensions to the indoor gallery space.

Architect: Renzo Piano Building Workshop, New York, in co-operation with Cooper Robertson, New York
Location: 99 Gansevoort Street, New York, NY 10014, USA

Photo: Nic Lehoux

The Whitney Museum has been founded in 1931 in Greenwich Village, moved to 54th street in 1954, to Madison Avenue in 1966, and now found its new home in the Meatpacking District. In more recent times its art collections have seen a substantial growth in size, creating the need for an extension. The large new building that has now been created offers enough space for over 19,000 pieces of modern and contemporary American art. 

Photo: Timothy Schenck

Photo: Timothy Schenck

Designed by Renzo Piano, the new museum building is asymmetric in form and is completely clad in vertical grey steel panels. Projections and returns articulate the elevation overlooking the Hudson River, while the rear of the building is characterised by a series of staggered terraces used as outdoor exhibition areas where sculptures are put on show.

Section: RPBW

Photos: Nic Lehoux

The entrance area on the south side is located below a dramatic cantilevered canopy and leads into a lobby that serves not only as a buffer zone between the bustling street and the museum but also as a freely accessible exhibition space. The galleries are spread out between the fifth and eight storeys on an area of 4,650 square metres, whereby a large column-free gallery is used to accommodate large three-dimensional works of art. The room programme also includes offices, reading rooms and a café along with a multi-use theatre space for various types of performances.  

Ground floor plan: RPBW

Floor plan level 8: RPBW

The extension building by Renzo Piano fits in between the Hudson River und High Line Park like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle. The impressions that visitors gain of this part of the museum need not be restricted to its interior but can also extend to the outside, as the staggered terraces at the rear of the building provide nearly every floor with an outdoor gallery, thus forming attractive open areas that also encourage visitors to stop a while and pass the time in the fresh air. Projecting exterior stairs present differing views of the surroundings and engage the extension building with its urban setting.

Photo: Karin Jobst

Photo: Timothy Schenck

Project data

Client: Whitney Museum of American Art
Team: M.Carroll und E.Trezzani mit K.Schorn, T.Stewart, S.Ishida, A.Garritano, F.Giacobello, I.Guzman, G.Melinotov, L. Priano, L.Stuart and C. Chabaud, J.Jones, G.Fanara, M.Fleming, D.Piano, J.Pejkovic; M.Ottonello (CAD) F.Cappellini, F.Terranova, I.Corsaro (Modelle)
Structure: Robert Silman Associates
Fire protection: Jaros, Baum & Bolles (MEP, fire prevention);
Lighting: Arup
Engineering (Façade): Heintges & Associates
Civil engineering: Phillip Habib & Associates
Theatre equipment: Theatre Projects
Acoustics: Cerami & Associates
Landscape architecture: Piet Oudolf with Mathews Nielson
Construction management: Turner Construction

Nature, not traffic: MVRDV greens highway

Seoul Skygarden, Renderings: MVRDV

Blooming glory instead of exhaust-belching traffic: an unused stretch of highway in Seoul is now to be transformed into an attractive promenade.

This project, brainchild of the Dutch architecture studio MVRDV, represents a particular form of upcycling. Instead of tearing down the highway on stilts in order to build something new, the creative architects want to rededicate the unused road as a park for city residents.
A bit of nature 17 metres off the ground, with 254 types of trees, bushes and flowers, all organized according to the Korean alphabet, will allow passers-by to discover new plants and interact with the green world. Cafés, flower shops, markets, bookshops and greenhouses will give the promenade its finishing touches.
The project is called Seoul Skygarden and has won MVRDV the international transformation contest. The highway was built in the 1970s and declared unsafe for motor traffic in 2006.
"Seoul Skygarden will improve daily life for many citizens of Seoul," says Winy Maas of MVRDV. "It will offer a lovely shortcut through a green oasis, right there among all the traffic and concrete of the city."

by editorial office Detail Daily on 06/09/2015

Light of the south: Fondation van Gogh in Arles

With a new building designed by Fluor Architectes, the Provençal city of Arles is honouring the painter who indelibly engraved it – and himself – on the memory of mankind. Natural light, the medium that stood at the heart of van Gogh's work, plays a leading role in the new gallery. 
 

Architect: Fluor Architecture
Location:35 Ter Rue du Docteur Fanton, 13200 Arles, France

Entrance with sliding gate. Photos: Fluor Architecture

As is known, the inhabitants of Arles never really warmed to the eccentric Dutchman Vincent van Gogh while he was alive. Nevertheless, the 15 months he spent in the South of France were his most prolific, with some 300 paintings and drawings coming about during his stay in the Provençal city.

Almost 125 years after his death, van Gogh's paintings are finally finding a suitable home in Arles. The 11-million-euro project is the work of Fondation van Gogh, founded in 1983 at the instigation of Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer Luc Hoffmann. Beforehand, the Fondation was located next to the city's Roman amphitheatre, in an old building equipped with neither the security nor the climate control for showing van Gogh's masterpieces.

Shop in the museum.

The Fondation's new home is a rehabilitated and enlarged 500-year-old mansion situated in the old quarter, not far from the banks of the Rhône. The Hôtel Léautaud de Donines was built towards the end of the 15th century by the merchant Jacques Grilho and underwent alterations later on, before finally being transformed by Fluor Architectes into a museum building that fulfils contemporary standards.

The inner court and the new elevator in the mansion house. Photo: Hervé Hôte

Visitors enter the museum grounds from the north and continue to the forecourt, where the artist Bertrand Lavier has placed van Gogh's characteristic "Vincent" signature on sliding gates over two metres high. The entrance facade is two storeys in height and completely glazed. The ground floor offers merely the cashier's desk, the toilets and secondary rooms, with the large exhibit hall being located on the first floor along with the museum shop with its glass front oriented to the forecourt. The reason for this particular spatial arrangement is simple: the natural slope of the site places the ground floor of the old merchant's house a storey higher than its entrance court to the north.

Longitudinal section: Fluor Architecture

Exhibition room. Photos: Fluor Architecture

Sawtooth roof of the great exhibition hall. 

»Impressionistic« play of coloured light
The glass roof of the museum shop features an artwork custom-designed by the Swiss artist Raphael Hefti. Although practically invisible from the inside, the effects created by his sculpture are not to be overseen: during the course of the day, 78 dichroic coated glass fins projecting from the roof at differing heights and in irregular formations cast wandering specks of light onto the shop's limestone walls, varying in colour according to the position of the sun.

Dichroic glass sculpture by Raphael Hefti.

Specks of reflected light on the limestone walls.

The architects did not stint on natural light in the remaining rooms either. The large hall has been provided an irregularly formed sawtooth roof, surrounded by a wood decked roof terrace that visitors can walk on. The windows in the old part of the building are unusually large for a museum, but are shaded at the reveals by textile screens. The inner court, now provided a glass roof, acts as a further source of daylight for the old merchant's house, in which steel walkways and a new elevator have been installed to connect the exhibition levels.

Roof terrace surrounding the sawtooth roof of the large exhibit hall. Photo: Hervé Hôte

Photos: Fluor Architecture

In coordination with the monument authority, the architects preserved interior fixtures and furnishings wherever possible, bringing about a fascinating dialogue – one sought for in vain in most contemporary museum buildings – between the residential architecture of past centuries and the masterpieces placed on show. Naturally a new and highly-efficient ventilation system does its work behind the scenes, and LED luminaires provide artificial lighting. Wherever acceptable from a conservation-related point of view, the thermal insulation and the sealing of the building shell have been adapted to modern standards. To prevent unnecessary heat introduction into the exhibit rooms, the glass roofs and skylights are made of low-emissivity glass.

Exhibition room in the old part of the building, complete with preserved fireplace.