Refurbishment of a House in Belgium

Bastogne by adn Architectures

adn architects of Belgium have completed the refurbishment of a house in La Roche-en-Ardenne, Belgium, painting both the new plaster and original shale walls in white to exaggerate the different textures.

Called Bastogne, the house utilises large white curtains to separate rooms and features exposed black cables hanging from the ceiling.

The kitchen and bathroom contain black blinds and polished-concrete work surfaces.

Here is some more information from the architects:

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To achieve a tension and duality between the existing situation and the foreseen intervention, the atmosphere is deliberately oriented towards streamlining, with a work on raw materials and an abstraction of spaces through the colour white.

One of the envisioned goals of the design is to highlight the “materiality” of the two shale dividing walls, the fitting and lime mortar grouting of which attest the history of the building.

The appearance of shale, the building’s main raw material, is made abstract behind the white paint coating.

The intent is to emphasize the rough feel of the texture, as opposed to the smoothness of the plastering, the concrete and the floors.

Program: Refurbishment of a traditional house
Client: Private
Location: La Roche-en-Ardenne, Belgium
Principal architects: adn Architectures
Project team: David Henquinet, Nicolas Iacobellis, Didier Vander Heyden
Floor area: 140 m2
Start of planning: 2007
Completion: 12/2009
Cost: 100.000 €

Glass window Made of 500 Crystal Prisms at MUSEUM

Rainbow Church by Tokujin Yoshioka

February 12th, 2010

Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka will exhibit a glass window made of 500 crystal prisms at MUSEUM. beyond museum in Seoul this May.

Called Rainbow Church, the eight metre-high installation will create rainbows within the space as the light is refracted.

More about Tokujin Yoshioka on Dezeen in our special category.

The information below is from Tokujin Yoshioka:

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Rainbow Church

The idea of this architecture project “Rainbow Church” dates back to when I was in early 20s.

When I was in France for a business trip, I went to Vence, a commune located near Nice. There, I visited the Chapelle du Rosaire, which Henri Matisse, a French painter, created in his last years. I was engrossed in the beauty of the light that the chapel created.

I experienced a space filled with the light of Matisse: Being bathed in the sunlight of the Provence, the stained glass with Matisse’s vibrant colors suffused the room with full of colors. Since then, I had been dreaming of designing an architecture where people can feel the light with all senses.

This dreaming architecture project will be realized as a concept plan at the exhibition held at MUSEUM. beyondmuseum in Seoul from May, 2010. The exhibition is planned to last until the end of June. A 8-meter-high stained glass made with approximately 500 crystal prisms will be filling the space with rainbow colors as the light shines on it.

House that Zig-Zags Across its Triangular Site

Lien Residence by Ministry of Design

Singapore studio Ministry of Design have completed a single-storey house that zig-zags across its triangular site in Singapore.

Called Lien Residence, the house twists to avoid an existing tree, creating courtyard spaces that are sheltered from the weather but admit light and breezes to the interior and basement level.

The building is split into three sections: an entertainment zone, a family zone and a private master zone.

The house also features a diagonally-patterned planted roof.

More stories about Ministry of Design on Dezeen:

Face to Face (January 2010)
Leo Burnett Office (October 2009)

Photographs are by Edward Hendricks and Patrick Bingham-Hall.

Here is some more information from Ministry of Design:

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Lien Residence by Ministry of Design

Architecture (with PAA) + Interior Architecture 600 sq m Singapore 2009. Built

Returning to the romance of the single-storey bungalow house, this zig-zag house acquires its unique form via a series of formal maneuvers around a mature tree located on its long and triangulated sliver of land.

Tropically acclimated to the region, the building’s twisting form creates “in-between” spaces which provide shelter from nature’s harsh elements and simultaneously allow for cross ventilation and filtered light. Courtyards, captured by the turning of the twisted building form, bring light into the basement service areas.

Internal corridors serve as breezeways between air-conditioned and naturally cooled areas.

Slightly lofted over the ground, each of the building’s three Miesian inspired wings house an entertainment zone, a family zone and a private master zone.

Seen as a seamless singular form, the building reads as both sheltering building as well as abstracted sculpture.

Viewed from the vicinity’s taller structures, the building’s roofscape provides the final design touch – where diagonally arranged planting strips echo the unique twisted form of the House Around a Tree.

Library Where Glazed Sections are Screened by a Trellis of Lettering

Médiathèque BDIV de Fougères by Tétrarc

Architectural photographer Stéphane Chalmeau has sent us his photos of a library in Fougères by French studio Tétrarc, where glazed sections of the building are screened by a trellis of lettering.

Called Médiathèque BDIV de Fougères, the project is organised around two courtyards and includes meeting places and educational facilities alongside the traditional library.

The interior features a nest-like reading room made of a metal structure covered in wooden sticks.

More about Tétrarc on Dezeen: Manny, a building covered in aluminium bars in Nantes, France (November 2009)

Here’s some more information from Tétrarc (in French):

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PROJET

Créer un équipement culturel de ce type, dans un site en mutation, est un sujet qui se doit d’être traité à la hauteur de l’enjeu qu’il représente.

A la fois lieu de travail et de recherches, espace de rencontres, instrument pédagogique, centre d’informations, la médiathèque invente un nouvel espace collectif d’échanges.

C’est pourquoi, ce projet présente une réponse architecturale à forte identité, revendicative d’une figure affirmant son statut de bâtiment public unique, inscrit dans une culture urbaine en voie d’achèvement.

Le projet s’articule sur des principes simples en occupant le terrain sans concession, ou peut être une, celle de créer un jardin au cœur du bâtiment afin d’y garantir un espace serein.

Les deux entités du programme ont leur propre autonomie de fonctionnement et sont clairement identifiées dans le projet suivant leurs accès et leurs façades respectives.

L’ensemble de l’équipement est construit sur deux niveaux.

Suivant les contraintes et exigences du programme, l’antenne BDIV et le secteur logistique s’implantant obligatoirement au rez-de-chaussée, la médiathèque se réparti dans une suite logique de fonctionnement entre les deux niveaux, complétée à l’étage du service de coordination.

Il suffit d’un regard pour comprendre l’organisation des lieux.

Les formes architecturales sont caractérisées par un jeu malin de pleins et de vides maîtrisant une matière qui devient ici un composant architectural de qualité grâce à un matériau irremplaçable qu’est le béton.

Le beau béton, car les parois extérieures sont traitées en panneaux matricés se déclinant en claustras sous forme d’énigmes indéchiffrables devant les parois vitrées extérieures et signe, d’une façon sans ambiguïté, l’identité du nouvel équipement.

En conclusion, le projet présente des qualités essentielles, d’où que l’on vienne, le bâtiment se remarquera, paré de sa texture architecturale exclusive, symbolique et signifiante, pour le rendre emblématique d’une vocation culturelle universelle.

Lieu: Fougères (35)
Maître d’Ouvrage: Fougères Communauté
Architecte: TETRARC architecte mandataire [Jean-Pierre MACE directeur de projet, Rémi TYMEN chef de projet]
Ingénieur Tous Corps d’Etat IOSIS CENTRE OUEST
Economiste: CMB
Acousticien: SERDB
Programme: Construction de la médiathèque BDIV (Bibliothèque Départementale d’Ille et Vilaine) de Fougères, aménagement intérieur et conception du mobilier.
Surface: 4 238 m²
Coût: 5,3 M€ HT
Mission: Mission de base et exécution partielle

Mental Health Clinic where none of the Doors Open

MD. net Clinic Akasaka by Nendo

Japanese designers Nendo have completed the interior of a mental health clinic in Akasaka, Tokyo, where none of the doors open and patients and staff instead move around the building by opening sections of the walls.

Called MD.net Clinic Akasaka, the project includes sliding bookcases behind which the consultation rooms can be found and a single opening door at the end of the corridor that reveals a window to the outside.

See all our stories about Nendo in our special category.

Here are some more details from Nendo:

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Nendo’s new interior design project in Tokyo
“MD.net Clinic AKASAKA”, a new mental health clinic

The interior design for a mental health clinic in Akasaka, Tokyo. The clinic specializes in total mental health care: in addition to standard consultations with a psychiatrist, it offers such services as corporate consulting and support for patients returning to the workplace.

Rather than getting patients back to a ‘zero’, a neutral starting place, the traditional model for mental health care, the clinic aims to provide patients with something extra: a further richness in their daily lives that they did not have before starting treatment. The interior design is an attempt to express this philosophy in space.

The ‘doors’ that line the walls of the clinic do not open, and ‘ordinary’ parts of the walls open up into new spaces. The consultation rooms are entered by sliding the bookshelves sideways. The door at the end of the hallway opens onto a window; the amount of light in the hallway is controlled by opening and closing the door.

By providing alternate perspectives for viewing the world, and avoiding being trapped by pre-existing perceptions, the interior allows visitors–and staff members–to experience opening new doors in their hearts, one after the other.