Month: May 2022

Spanning over 3 millennia with one of the highest concentrations of architecture in the world, Rome is a transcendental influence on the world’s culture. A city rich in history, academia, and arts, the Italian capital is considered as one of the oldest continuously-occupied cities in Europe, and has maintained its countless layers of history to become a perfect depiction of old meets new, earning its nickname of “The Eternal City”. 

Dwelling implies movement and stillness. In this house, we wanted to give the same hierarchy to both the places of passage and those of permanence, arranged around or through different patios and gardens.

Henning Larsen revealed the design for World of Volvo, an experience centre for the Swedish car manufacturer that highlights the Scandinavian landscape and architectural traditions. Currently under construction, the project features a circular timber structure that takes on a modern approach to traditional construction material, while expressing openness and an intimate relationship with the landscape. The venue is set for completion in late 2023 and will open to visitors in 2024.

Visual permeability, ventilation and a strong identity appeal, the hollow elements have increasingly found their place in contemporary architecture. Whether in large buildings or small residences, they appear in different shapes, materials and compositions, helping to determine the degree of interaction between interior and exterior space. This artifice in a residential construction is an important tool to ensure privacy and intimacy, without losing the possibility of connections to the outside and natural ventilation.

In New Mexico, irrigation channels that have been in continuous operation for three centuries replenish and nourish the wetlands of the American Southwest. These channels are known as Acequias – communally managed water systems built on democratic tradition. Members of the community own water rights, who then elect a three-person team to oversee the channels. In Cairo and Barcelona, Tahrir Square and Plaza de Catalunya have acted as important sites for voicing political dissatisfaction. The Tahrir Square protests of 2011, for instance, resulted in the eventual toppling of an almost 30-year-old government.

This project is for three residences two blocks from Healdsburg Plaza. Two are two-story L-shaped courtyard homes and the third is a bar above the garage. Healdsburg’s characteristic residential language of shady porches, light painted clapboard siding, and fertile landscapes are reinterpreted in a contemporary language. The front of the building is a latticework screened porch with a colonnaded portico. Linear planters define the edge of the property. Drought-resistant planting covers the ground between the planters and porch.

Sawo Rontgen occupies the front yard of an existing house in a residential area with a strong tie to medical facilities. Searching for a unique identity for the second home of Sawo Coffee, we took the location’s rontgen street name as an identity generator and play around with the visual quality of rontgen.