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Pearce+ create temporary sub-zero restaurant in Canada

UK architecture studio Pearce+ and Canadian designer Joe Kalturnyk have created a temporary inflatable restaurant for subzero temperatures in Winnipeg, Canada.

The barrel-vaulted restaurant has space for 48 guests dining in temperatures as low as -30 degrees Celsius during the 10th annual RAW:almond fine dining food festival, which celebrates both Canadian cuisine and the harsh winter.

Inflatable restaurant in Winnipeg — The temporary restaurant was designed by Pearce+

Each year, the food festival commissions the construction of a temporary structure that responds to its environment and incorporates sustainable reuse.

“[The shelter] mirrors the ethos of the food served within by minimizing waste, discovering elegance in simplicity, creatively celebrating local identity, and incorporating a global outlook,” said the team.

Vaulted dining room — It featured a vaulted dining room

Pearce+, based in Herfordshire and London, constructed the 220-square metre (2,370-square foot) restaurant in just a few weeks, and it was in use for 22 days early in 2024.

The snow-surrounded structure had a cruciform plan with a 140-square metre (1,500-square foot) vaulted dining room that contained two linear tables.

Custom inflatable restaurant — Pearce+ developed custom inflatable panels

Employing a Diagrid framework, the vault was constructed from 18-meter-long, 15-millimetre reinforced steel bars.

“These bars were bundled in groups of three, with varying plywood spacers, to create exceptionally lightweight trusses,” the team said.

Reflective foil interior panels — Interior diamond-shaped panels featured a reflective foil layer

The team – with the help of inflatable specialists at Inflate Ltd – developed custom inflatable panels that mitigated the potential pressure to decrease the cold temperature’s lower air density. It was stretched over the framework.

The diamond-shaped panels featured a gold-coloured foil layer that reflected heat into the space.

Restaurant entrance — Festival goers entered through a smaller vaulted lobby tunnel

Along the ridge line, the gold panels were swapped with transparent ones, offering a view to the snowy sky.

The panels were connected with Velcro – rather than glue due to the extreme temporal variation – and were disassembled and stored for future uses.

Rectangular kitchen — Directly across from the entrance was the rectangular kitchen

Capping each end of the dining area were trapezoidal buttressing structures, designed to resist strong winds and offer emergency egress.

Festival goers entered through a smaller vaulted lobby tunnel at the centre of the plan. A gabled wooden vestibule transitioned into the dining area.

Directly behind the structure was the rectangular kitchen.

Separated by a small hallway, the kitchen was constructed with a Structurally Insulated Panels (SIP) flat-pack and outfitted with high-quality appliances.

Rectangular dining tables featured inside

The structure was meant to be a demonstration of ways to conserve space by utilising temporary structures.

“I think it’s necessary to start re-envisioning how we use space, for what and for how long,” said RAW:almond co-founder Joe Kalturnyk.

“In the beginning I was interested in seeing if you can temporarily build a city within a city – and what better way to test the idea than with food? RAW:almond was a huge leap – would people embrace the winter and eat outdoors? Would they do it on a frozen river? And ultimately, could we even pull this off?”

In 2015, the RAW:almond pop-up restaurant was constructed on the surface of a frozen river with an X-shaped plan lying over the connection between the Assiniboine and Red rivers.

Pop-up restaurant interior — The restaurant was designed for subzero temperatures

Also in Winnipeg, Canadian studio KPMB revealed a horticultural centre with a Fibonacci spiral roof.

The photography is by Simeon Rusnak.

RAW:almond 2024 took place from 24 January to 18 February. For more events, talks and exhibitions involving architecture and design visit Dezeen Events Guide.

Project credits:

Project founders: Joe Kalturnyk & Mandel Hitzer
Architect/designer: Pearce+ and Joe Kalturnyk
Architect of record: AtLrg Architecture
Project management: Joe Kalturnyk
Structural engineers: Wolfrom Engineering
Inflatable specialists: Inflate
Visualisations: Pearce+
Construction: RAW:Almond team, Pearce+ and Hi-Rise

Reference

Interior Design

Natura Futura and Juan Carlos Bamba create floating house in Ecuador

By Zarkon Group,03/12/2023

Architecture studio Natura Futura Arquitectura and architect Juan Carlos Bamba have created a floating house along the Babahoyo River in Ecuador.

Situated within a centuries-old floating village at risk of disappearing, La Balsanera is designed as a model for the preservation and sustainable redevelopment of the river’s depleting community.

Aerial view of the La Balsanera — La Balsanera is a floating house along the Babahoyo River

Following the river’s current closure as a commercial fluvial route, the community saw the number of floating structures decrease from 200 to 25.

La Balsanera is hoped to help revive “the tradition of living on the river”, according to Natura Futura Arquitectura and Bamba.

Terraces wrap around the house located along the Babahoyo River — It has a terrace with a colourful hammock

Built for a family of three, whose livelihoods include selling food to the local community and repairing wooden boats, the 70-square-metre design highlights the river as a vital socio-economic resource.

A two-metre-wide extension to an existing platform provides terraces for them to use as “productive environments”, such as a cafe seating area or anchor point for tourist boats.

Kitchen area of house by Natura Futura and Juan Carlos Bamba — Slatted openings provide ventilation

“La Balsanera explores possible floating solutions that recover local artisan techniques while promoting the active and productive participation of the occupants in vulnerable communities,” Bamba told Dezeen.

The home is built from wooden porticos constructed every two metres to form a gabled truss structure. This is topped by a corrugated roof that shelters the outdoor terraces and a colourful hammock.

A central space hosts a shared living room, dining area and kitchen along with two bedrooms, while two external strips at either end provide a toilet, shower, laundry space and boat workshop.

Slatted openings, known locally as “chazas”, have been made from recycled wood and help naturally ventilate and cool the interior.

View of bedroom spaces in floating house in Ecuador — A bridge made from bamboo and wood connect the home to the mainland

A bridge made from bamboo and planks of wood provides a walkway between the floating home and the mainland.

Meanwhile, shutter doors used throughout the design link the living spaces to the surrounding terraces.

Seating is provided on the terrace of La Balsanera — A seating area is provided on the river-facing terrace

Natura Futura Arquitectura and Bamba are based in Ecuador and Spain respectively.

Other projects completed by Natura Futura Arquitectura include a fitness centre featuring giant shutters and a mirrored viewing platform in the Ecuadorean countryside.

The photography is by Francesco Russo.

Reference

Sustainable News

Using lasers to create a database of the world’s forests

By Zarkon Group,26/11/2023

Spotted: In the last 10,000 years, the world has lost one-third of its tree cover, with the last 100 years seeing as much deforestation as the previous 9,000. As well as depleting essential carbon sinks, this tree-felling has also proven detrimental to the Earth’s natural biodiversity. New ways of mapping and interacting with our forests are necessary to keep track of, and hopefully begin to reverse, this environmental disaster.

This is where ArborMeta comes in – using a proprietary combination of LiDAR, algorithmic analysis, and software to analyse our world’s forests in unprecedented detail.

With this technology, the company can view the above-ground biomass of an area and in turn, quantify the sequestered carbon that is stored there – our forests being the largest store of living carbon in the world. LiDAR (light detecting and ranging) is a technology that relies on lasers to measure distances and then create high-resolution models of the area it has been used on, in this case, a forest.

The idea is relatively simple. The LiDAR sends out a laser and measures the amount of time it takes to return and then works out the distance through this time versus the speed of light. This process, carried out with many thousands of beams of light and over many different positions in a forest, produces a 3D map that is unmatched in its accuracy.

ArborMeta’s three-step process of terrestrial LiDAR collection, aerial and satellite data calibration, and then machine learning generation allows for essential environmental data to be collected and understood more easily and efficiently.

MRV (monitoring, reporting, and verification) is a process by which the success of environmental projects is recorded and ArborMeta’s technology helps to reduce the labour and cost of this without compromising accuracy – whether that’s for carbon stock assessments or tracking conservation efforts.

Our forests are precious, so it’s no surprise that innovators are developing creative ways to protect them. Springwise has also spotted these microforests that are returning degraded land to productivity as well as this new approach of valuing forests as ESG assets.

Written By: Archie Cox

Reference

Interior Design

Keiji Ashizawa Design and Norm Architects create Trunk Hotel in Tokyo

By Zarkon Group,17/11/2023

An exposed raw concrete facade fronts the Trunk Hotel Yoyogi Park, which Japanese studio Keiji Ashizawa Design and Danish firm Norm Architects conceived as a minimalist retreat in the heart of the city.

Marking the third location in a trio of Trunk hotels in Tokyo, the design of the boutique hotel was rooted in the concept of “urban recharge”, according to Trunk chief creative officer Masayuki Kinoshita.

The raw concrete facade of Trunk Hotel Yoyogi Park — Trunk Hotel Yoyogi Park features a raw concrete facade

The hotel group said the idea was to balance the opposing elements of tradition and modernity as well as nature and the city and the melding of both Japanese and European craft.

Keiji Ashizawa Design created a textured concrete aggregate facade for the seven-storey building, which is punctuated with steel-lined balconies and overlooks Yoyogi Park’s lush treetops.

Neutral bathroom within Tokyo's Trunk Hotel — Guest rooms feature a muted colour and material palette

The studio worked with Norm Architects to design the minimalist interior, accessed via a copper-clad entrance.

A total of 20 guest rooms and five suites were dressed in a muted colour and material palette featuring hardwood flooring and plush Hotta Carpet-designed rugs informed by traditional Japanese architecture.

Paper-cord chairs and washi pendant lights at Trunk Hotel in Tokyo — Paper-cord chairs and tapered washi pendant lights contribute to the minimalist design

Delicate rattan partition walls delineate spaces within the rooms, which open out onto the building’s balconies that were fitted with slanted ceilings in order to encourage sunlight into each room “as if mimicking the gentle transitions of a day”.

“It’s been an interesting journey for us to find the right balance between a space that is relaxed and vibrant at the same time,” said Norm Architects co-founder Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen.

Minimalist neutral double bed within the Trunk Hotel in Tokyo — The interiors were designed to be both “relaxed and vibrant”

The rooms are also characterised by paper-cord chairs and tapered washi pendant lights as well as abstract artworks, amorphous vases and grainy floor-to-ceiling bathroom tiles.

On the ground floor, oak seating designed by Norm Architects for Karimoku features in the hotel restaurant, which includes a striking copper-clad pizza oven and the same rattan accents that can be found in the guest rooms.

Rattan room dividers in the restaurant of Trunk Hotel — Rattan accents can also be found in the hotel restaurant

“It is a very unique and gratifying experience in the sense that the architecture, interior and furniture, as well as the attention to detail, have created a space with such a strong sense of unity,” said Keiji Ashizawa Design.

An open-air pool club is located on the sixth floor of the hotel.

Sand-blasted concrete flooring was paired with thin bluey-green tiles that make up the infinity swimming pool, which overlooks the park below.

A “glowing” firepit can also be set alight after dark, intended to create a soothing contrast with the bright Tokyo skyline.

Rooftop infinity pool overlooking Yoyogi Park — The Trunk Hotel features a rooftop infinity pool

The city’s first Trunk Hotel opened in Shibuya in 2017, while the second location is an offbeat one-room hotel in the metropolis’s Kagurazaka neighbourhood featuring its own miniature nightclub.

The photography is by Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen.

Reference

Interior Design

HawkinsBrown renovates offices to create a “connection to nature”

By Zarkon Group,10/11/2023

A stack of meeting rooms and a moss-covered wall overlook the atriums of Here + Now, a pair of office buildings in England refurbished by architecture studio Hawkins\Brown.

Informed by changing attitudes to workplace design following the Covid-19 pandemic, the two buildings have been renovated with a focus on wellbeing and a connection to nature.

They are located within a wider business park in Reading, formerly used by Microsoft.

Atrium at the Here+Now office building by Hawkins\Brown — Hawkins\Brown has renovated a pair of offices in Reading called Here + Now

Connected by a bridge at their centre, the two buildings contain different facilities. One of them, named Here, offers space for more established companies, while the other, named Now, contains offices for smaller companies and start-ups.

“Here + Now is located on a business park, not in a city centre, which provides users with a much closer connection to nature and therefore better opportunity for activity and wellbeing,” Hawkins\Brown partner Massimo Tepedino told Dezeen.

“The idea is that companies can scale up or down and thereby stay on the campus for longer – this ultimately helps to create a sense of community,” he added.

Atrium at the Here+Now office building — A moss-covered wall overlooks an atrium in the Now building

While the two buildings share a similar material and colour palette, the finishes of each were slightly different based on its tenants.

The approach to the Now building focuses on more cost-effective, flexible spaces, while the Here building is finished to a higher specification.

Here+Now office interior by Hawkins\Brown — Wood has been used to form seating areas and quiet nooks

Each of the two buildings features a large arrival atrium designed to evoke a sense of “wonder”.

In the Here building, this space has a stack of meeting pods described by Hawkins\Brown as a “treehouse”, while dehydrated moss-covered balconies animate the atrium in Now.

Shared by both buildings are a range of on-site amenities, including a gym and treatment rooms, as well as a “lifestyle manager” who organises events and workshops.

“The benefit of having two buildings share amenities is that office spaces can accommodate a wide range of budgets, while everyone benefits from best-in-class amenities and the opportunity to socialise with established professionals and young entrepreneurs,” explained Tepedino.

Glass pitched roof at the Here+Now office building — The two buildings are connected by a bridge

The glass and metal structures of the existing buildings have been treated internally with wooden panelling, which complements new wooden seating areas and nooks.

Particular attention was paid to the colour scheme, with a muted palette intended to evoke the nearby natural landscape and create a relaxing atmosphere.

Exterior of the Here+Now office building by Hawkins\Brown — The project is located on a business park

“We know that colours can facilitate, regulate, and even influence people’s behaviour – our colour palette takes its cues from the natural landscape and compliments the neutral tones of the existing buildings,” explained Hawkins\Brown.

“The bathrooms take inspiration from spas and hotels, with green shades and bold graphics create a strong visual connection to nature and a calming environment.”

Here + Now has been shortlisted in the large workplace interior category of Dezeen Awards 2023.

Other projects recently completed by Hawkins\Brown include a student hub at Queen’s University Belfast with RPP Architects and the transformation of the historic Central Foundation Boys’ School in London.

The photography is by Jack Hobhouse.

Reference

Sustainable News

MIT engineers create battery alternative using cement and carbon black

By Zarkon Group,04/08/2023

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a low-cost energy storage system that could be integrated into roads and building foundations to facilitate the renewable energy transition.

The research team has created a supercapacitor – a device that works like a rechargeable battery – using cement, water and carbon black, a fine black powder primarily formed of pure carbon.

The breakthrough could pave the way for energy storage to be embedded into concrete, creating the potential for roads and buildings that charge electric devices.

Photo of cement and carbon black supercapacitor by MIT researchers — MIT researchers created a set of button-sized supercapacitors. Image courtesy of MIT

Unlike batteries, which rely on materials in limited supply such as lithium, the technology could be produced cheaply using materials that are readily available, according to the researchers.

They describe cement and carbon black as “two of humanity’s most ubiquitous materials”.

“You have the most-used manmade material in the world, cement, combined with carbon black, which is a well-known historical material – the Dead Sea Scrolls were written with it,” said MIT professor Admir Masic.

The research team included Masic and fellow MIT professors Franz-Josef Ulm and Yang-Shao Horn, with postdoctoral researchers Nicolas Chanut, Damian Stefaniuk and Yunguang Zhu at MIT and James Weaver at Harvard’s Wyss Institute.

“Huge need for big energy storage”

They believe the technology could accelerate a global shift to renewable energy.

Solar, wind and tidal power are all produced at variable times, which often don’t correspond with peak electricity demand. Large-scale energy storage is necessary to take advantage of these sources but is too expensive to realise using traditional batteries.

“There is a huge need for big energy storage,” said Ulm. “That’s where our technology is extremely promising because cement is ubiquitous.”

The team proved the concept works by creating a set of button-sized supercapacitors, equivalent to one-volt batteries, which were used to power an LED light.

They are now developing a 45-cubic-metre version to show the technology can be scaled up.

Calculations suggest a supercapacitor of this size could store around 10 kilowatt-hours of energy, which would be enough to meet the daily electricity usage of a typical household.

This means that a supercapacitor could potentially be incorporated into the concrete foundation of a house for little to no additional cost.

“You can go from one-millimetre-thick electrodes to one-metre-thick electrodes, and by doing so basically you can scale the energy storage capacity from lighting an LED for a few seconds to powering a whole house,” Ulm said.

The researchers suggest that embedding the technology into a concrete road could make it possible to charge electric cars while they are travelling across it, using similar technology to that used in wireless phone chargers.

Battery-powered versions of this system are already being trialled across Europe.

Carbon black key to “fascinating” composite

Supercapacitors work by storing electrical energy between two electrically conductive plates. They are able to deliver charge much more rapidly than batteries but most do not offer as much energy storage.

The amount of energy they are able to store depends on the total surface area of the two plates, which are separated by a thin insulation layer.

The version developed here has an extremely high internal surface area, which greatly improves its effectiveness. This is due to the chemical makeup of the material formed when carbon black is introduced to a concrete mixture and left to cure.

“The material is fascinating,” said Masic. “The carbon black is self-assembling into a connected conductive wire.”

According to Masic, the amount of carbon black needed is very small – as little as three per cent.

The more is added, the greater the storage capacity of the supercapacitor. But this also reduces the structural strength of the concrete, which could be a problem in load-bearing applications.

The “sweet spot” is believed to be around 10 per cent.

The composite material could also be utilised within a heating system, the team suggested. Full details of their findings are due to be published in an upcoming edition of science journal PNAS.

Other attempts at creating large-scale, low-cost energy storage systems include Polar Night Energy’s “sand battery”, which is already servicing around 10,000 people in the Finnish town of Kankaanpää.

The top image is courtesy of Shutterstock.

Reference

Architecture

Material researchers create biodegradable concrete casting using sawdust

By Zarkon Group,01/08/2023

A research team at the University of Michigan has created biodegradable formwork out of sawdust in an attempt to mitigate wood waste in the process of laying concrete.

The wood-based material is a result of the BioMatters project by the Digital Architecture Research and Technologies (DART) Lab at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

A 3D-printed column made of sawdust — A research team at the University of Michigan has created a sawdust material for concrete formwork

Led by DART director Mania Aghaei Meibodi along with researchers Muhammad Dayyem Khan and Tharanesh Varadharajan, the team sought to create a material to reuse industrial sawdust in order to lessen the waste created by formwork used in concrete construction.

The team mixed sawdust with biopolymers and additives to create its material, which can be moulded or 3D-printed into various shapes. In order to demonstrate its capabilities, the team used the material to create concrete formwork.

Two people hold a 3D-printed sawdust column — The material can be 3D-printed in order to create structural columns

The team 3D-printed a 1.8-metre structural column, pouring concrete into its centre incrementally. After the concrete was dry, the sawdust formwork was peeled off to reveal the column.

The sawdust material was then saved and recycled by adding water in order to recreate the viscosity level required for 3D printing. Using this process, the team successfully reused the same material over 25 times to create additional columns.

Concrete poured into a a column of sawdust casting — The material is created using a mixture of sawdust and biopolymers

According to the team, 15 billion trees are cut down worldwide per year, which results in three million pounds of sawdust dumped into landfills in the United States.

The sawdust may often be burned as an alternative, which can cause environmental pollution.

A column made of sawdust and bio polymers — It can be recycled by adding water

“It’s like a precious material for me because you’re cutting down a tree,” said researcher Muhammad Dayyem Khan. “I think every particle of that tree should be reused if you’re cutting it down.”

According to DART Lab, formwork contributes to up to 40 per cent of concrete construction expenses and is usually constructed from wood. After its use on construction sites, the formwork is often discarded.

The team also plans to experiment with making larger structures with the material.

“For example, some structures can be printed in a big warehouse and then you just turn them back up,” said Khan. “Just rotate them 90 degrees and you’ve got a bigger structure.”

A concrete column getting sprayed with water — The material is used to mitigate waste produced by the concrete industry

While the BioMatters team initially experimented with the material for formwork, it suggested that the potential reaches beyond just concrete construction.

“It can be anything,” said Khan. “It can be small, decorative items. It can be furniture. It can be your walls, doors, windows.”

The material can also be sanded and stained similar to wood in order to create a smoother finish. The team has yet to explore what woods perform best for the material.

For more projects that utilize sawdust, Designer Oh Geon also used it to create a blocky stool while Mater Design utilised the material for a re-released version of the Conscious Chair.

Photography courtesy of DART Lab.

Reference

Architecture

How to Create a Compelling Architectural Rendering Using Customizable Materials and Assets

By Zarkon Group,31/07/2023

Translating the architectural masterpiece in your head into a tangible visualization for clients and colleagues can feel like an impossible task if you don’t have the right tools in your arsenal. Fortunately, cutting-edge real-time rendering software like Enscape can help architects and designers bring their projects to life with breathtaking clarity — and improve the speed and efficiency of your workflow.

Exploring 3D models in real time allows you to quickly evaluate every facet of a design. At the ideation stage, it’s easy to identify mistakes, experiment with different solutions and make instant alterations. Furthermore, with new levels of customization now possible, you can transform your concepts into immersive worlds for clients, imparting a compelling, human perspective to each project. Most importantly, your design intent is crystal clear from the outset.

Here are five steps to creating stunning architectural visualizations with adjustable assets and real-time rendering software.

1. Perfect your perspective.

Like a photographer, it’s important to consider the composition of your renderings. There are a number of general rules you can follow to make your framing more powerful — though these are yours to break.

The rule of thirds is an age-old principle. Dividing the frame into a three-by-three grid, this composition ensures the most important features fall along the lines or at their intersections. Alternatively, you could consider using one-, two-, or three-point perspectives anchored around crucial moments in the frame. If your scene is laden with multiple strong elements, it may be more impactful to hone in on one single focal point instead and tell that story succinctly.

If you’re an Enscape user, you have the ability to create handy presets for each view once you’ve settled on your composition. Every camera angle requires its own unique settings. In Enscape, you can link the preset to the view, so the visual settings will automatically change when you navigate through the different perspectives.

2. Plan your lighting setup.

Negotiating the balance between light and dark is key if you want to produce a realistic rendering. Think about what time of day your scene is set and examine the conditions in the real world. What position would the sun or moon be in? Depending on the orientation of any windows, where would shadows be cast and how dark would they be? Are there any surfaces light might reflect off? In Enscape, it’s possible to customize the time of day for each view to set the right mood for the scene.

For artificial lighting, consider the angle of the light, its strength and how intense shadows would be according to each particular lighting system. Extremely dark areas can lose detail and material quality, so ensure the frame’s main focal points are adequately lit.

Enscape 3.5, the software’s newest iteration, features updates to their global illumination algorithm, including a host of changes to make the light quality in your renderings more lifelike. These include more accurate shading in mirror reflections and more realistic indirect lighting in interior scenes.

3. Customize your project materials.

Blurry and pixelated 3D textures result in lackluster visualizations. Material clarity can elevate your architectural renderings to the next level. Enscape’s Material Library offers an array of high-quality, versatile textures you can apply across interior and exterior surfaces. It’s easy to experiment with different materials and instantly swap them in and out until you arrive at the right finish. You can also import materials from other sites to expand your library.

Textures with visual repetitions can be jarring and disrupt the illusion of realism. However, bump maps and reflections are automatically applied to materials from the Enscape Material Library to impart even more depth to your renderings. If these settings don’t align with the aesthetic you’re trying to achieve, you can use the Enscape Material Editor to customize displacement maps.

As well as the exterior and interior textures of your project, don’t neglect the other scene elements that will bring your image to life. Pay special attention to typically overlooked surfaces such as the asphalt of an adjacent road or the ripples of a lake in the background to ensure the entire composition feels palpable.

4. Utilize realistic assets.

Illustrating your renderings with the fixtures of everyday life, be it furniture, decorations, trees, vehicles and even people, can enforce your world-building and strengthen your design. Enscape’s recently released adjustable asset series offers options for you to modify assets to your liking. There are over 1,000 new 3D adjustable assets, encompassing texture alterations and variants of an item’s geometry, plus almost an infinite number of color options to choose from.

What’s more, the Enscape 3.5 update offers 93 new unique people assets to help demonstrate the functionality of your project and add a more emotive dimension to your scenes. In instances where architects and designers need specific assets, you can import your own models into the Custom Asset Library too. Check out this in-depth tutorial on harnessing Enscape’s asset library within Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, Archicad and Vectorworks.

5. Fine-tune in post-production.

When you’ve finished crafting your scenes, there may be post-production tweaks you want to make to add the finishing touches to your renderings. In Enscape, you can easily export your images and continue work in any photo editing software. You can even export different types of rendering elements so you can quickly modify a specific object or material. For example, you can export object ID, material ID and channel depth for more targeted editing.

Enscape 3.5 also benefits from improvements to the alpha channel functionality (the alpha channel is a layer that represents an image’s degree of transparency). The alpha channel export feature allows you to take renderings with a transparent background out of Enscape and edit them externally. The recent update now enables users to export semi-transparent materials too, such as windows and glass surfaces, speeding up post-processing.

Supercharge your design communication and try Enscape’s real-time rendering software for yourself with a free 14-day trial. The Enscape plug-in is compatible with popular modeling software, including SketchUp, Revit, Rhinoceros, Archicad and Vectorworks.

Reference

Architecture

Sustainable Practice: How To Create a Concrete Oasis in a Forgotten Public Space

By Zarkon Group,05/07/2023

Architizer is thrilled to announce the winners of the 11th Annual A+Awards! Interested in participating next season? Sign up for key information about the 12th Annual A+Awards, set to launch this fall.

Now home to 1.4 billion people, India, the most populous nation on Earth, is under immense pressure across numerous socio-economic factors. This is rarely more evident than the challenge of developing urban areas in livable ways.

The United Nations predicts that by 2030 around 40% of the country will be living in cities, a four-fold increase on figures from the turn of the 20th century and significantly more than the 28% recorded in a 2001 census. An astounding rate of urbanization, according to a 2019 study by Manish Ramaiah and Ram Avtar, “Urban Green Spaces and Their Need In Cities of Rapidly Urbanizing India,” these booming centers of human activity are struggling when it comes to public realms and natural assets.

Looking across India’s densest cities with populations over one million, none offer more than 410 square feet (38 square meters) of green space per capita. In Mumbai, it’s less than 110 square feet (10 square meters). We tend to think about the introduction of parkland as a major undertaking that needs vast amounts of potentially profitable real estate to realize, but there’s much to be said about smaller interventions that reuse and rethink infrastructure to address the imbalance between built and living environment.

Promenade Plantée in Paris (C) La Citta Vita

Arguably the most famous example in recent memory is New York’s High Line. A 1.5 mile (2.5 kilometer) stretch of former elevated rail turned into a greenway, although actually modelled on Promenade Plantée in Paris, which opened 20 years earlier, the Big Apple take made the biggest noise and catalyzed similar ideas in other cities. From Atlanta and Los Angeles to Manchester, taking disused transportation routes and creating gardens or parks on them is now relatively commonplace.

Others — for example Toronto and San Francisco — have set out to place modern green spaces on the roof of in-service interchange hubs. Rather than looking up, Mumbai’s One Green Mile offers a narrow 1-mile-long (2-kilometer) public realm at ground level because the street offers one of few potential spaces in the locality. Winning the Jury Award for Built Sustainable Transport at this year’s Architizer A+Awards, the project is located partly beneath the flyover of a major commuter route and alongside a busy street.

Artwork, planting and public realms within One Green Mile, Mumbai, by StudioPOD

Efforts began with an analysis of existing conditions in the area, unsurprisingly concluding there was a severe shortage of open space. Stakeholder consultations also offered an insight into how interventions should and could be made. Three priorities were identified: streamlining traffic movement and street geometry, equitable allocation of space for all and the creation of high quality public realm beneath the road.

Designed by StudioPOD, and completed in 2022, the results are impressive. Play and seating areas, an amphitheatre, Vachanalaya and 130 trees now sit under the flyover. Vertical sections are painted with imagery reflecting the story of the Lower Parel district and have been extensively planted with native species.

Back out on the street, road capacity has been reduced to allow more room for people, to add greenery, open up space for bus stops and to lay street furniture in place. In total, 2.3 acres (1 hectare) of public space has been added to the area, with 21, 500 square feet (2,000 square meters) under the flyover alone. A route taken by more than 150,000 people each day, in the centre of Mumbai’s frantic financial district, has been not only improved but turned into a destination in itself.

One Green Mile public realm interventions

One Green Mile’s covered public realm, before the project began in 2018 and today, by StudioPOD

Countless studies have identified a strong link between access to urban space and health, not least in terms of green areas. Physically, we know exercise and active lifestyles keep our bodies in better condition, and One Green Mile clearly answers a call for active travel in Mumbai. But the benefits are also evident in terms of psychological wellbeing, too.

Earlier in 2023, Finish researchers presented one of the latest studies on this subject, concluding that visiting urban green space three or four times a week significantly reduces the likelihood of drug use to combat mental health, high blood pressure and respiratory illness. Rates fell by one third, asthma dropped by a quarter. This was true of parks and community gardens.

A children’s play area (top) and communal seating form part of Mumbai’s One Green Mile, by StudioPOD

Adding further evidence to the benefit of smaller interventions of this type, in 2019 University of Wollongong experts published a paper that showed a tree canopy alone can lower psychological distress by as much as 31%. It’s also important to consider the specifics of One Green Mile’s masterplan when gauging its success. Of course there are designated areas — the children’s playground is specifically for children to play — but much of the space is adaptable.

Sites of loose congregation, to some extent they reflect the public realms celebrated in the book Designing for Disorder. A conversation between architects Pablo Sendra and Richard Bennett responding to the former’s 1970 publication, The Uses Of Disorder, both texts and practitioners see static, planned and specific as negative public realm planning because they do not reflect human life, nor evolution. Truly worthwhile interventions must offer use cases that become apparent in the eye of the beholder ,or risk falling into neglect, effectively becoming another waste of space.

Reference

Architecture

Architectural Details: How to Create a Stunning Minimalist Residence That Brings the Outside In

By Zarkon Group,20/05/2023

Brevity is one of the most powerful tools in the architect’s apparatus. This astonishing glass house, perched on the banks of Minnesota’s Lake Minnetonka, is proof of precisely that. Clean, crisp lines define its striking structure, which emerges from the trees like a modernist specter.

The brief for the project called for a design that maximized light and forged an intimate relationship with the external world. Thanks to magnificent expanses of glass, the residence is a conduit for the surrounding landscape — an elegant, architectural “picture frame”. Yet creating a home that is visually defined by its glazed skin is not a straightforward endeavor, and its successful resolution hinges on the integration of resilient, high-performing materials.

Photo courtesy of Spacecrafting.

Making a Glass House Structurally Sound

Less is more, or so the mantra of modernism goes. Somewhat ironically though, achieving minimalism is no simple task. Subtracting as much as possible from a building’s fabric is an act of bravery, a challenge that Charlie & Co. Design and John Kraemer & Sons Custom Builders admirably rose to.

Charlie Simmons, the founding principal of Charlie & Co. Design, shared the formative questions they asked themselves at the start of the project: “You strip out all the unnecessary things. What’s the limited amount of structure you need? Could you really go floor-to-ceiling with glass? How high can you make it? And then you start whittling away and whittling away and what’s left?”

The team turned to Marvin to help them deliver the seamless, streamlined esthetic their client wanted. The Marvin Modern product line, comprising a modular series of durable, fiberglass products with narrow sightlines, was the ideal fit for the ambitious design. The doors and windows feature an integrated structural cavity that adds up to half an inch of mull reinforcement to aid structural performance.

But there was still a fundamental obstacle at the heart of the scheme: glass is not typically made to hold significant weight. The project architect and the Marvin engineering department crunched the numbers and came up with an innovative solution: unobtrusive, load-bearing components were integrated into the design without compromising its sleek finish.

“There are very few actual walls in this place, particularly on the first floor … so we have these structural elements that we need to keep the house up and prevent it from twisting,” Simmons explained. A stone fireplace at one end of the home anchors the building, bookended by what Simmons calls “a box within a box” at the opposite end – a wood structure that houses the kitchen, laundry room and powder room.

Photo courtesy of Spacecrafting.

Ensuring Impressive Thermal Efficiency

Minnesota is a land of climatic extremes, from frigid, frosty winters to humid summer months. For a form dominated by glass, extreme fluctuations in temperature posed another major challenge. Unsurprisingly, the home’s thermal envelope was of paramount concern for the architects, and it was vital that the material structure could stand up to snowstorms and heatwaves alike.

Marvin Modern doors and windows proved strong enough to endure the site’s environmental demands. Made from solid pieces of high-density fiberglass, they provide powerful insulation and an impressive U-factor of 0.28. Shielded from the elements, the residence’s interior is comfortable and inviting all year round, while maintaining a palpable connection with the natural topography. Remarkably, no additional insulating materials were required to aid the glazing’s thermal efficiency.

Photo courtesy of Spacecrafting.

Blurring the Boundary Between Inside and Out

The result of this innovative project is a stunning, living glass box that shifts organically with the light levels, weather conditions and seasons. The stretches of glazing are punctuated with Accoya wood cladding, while interior millwork in the same warm grain establishes a sense of continuity between indoors and out.

Yet however you look at this modern masterpiece, glass is the star of the show. Imbued with the Marvin Modern product line, the structure is a skillful and poetic negotiation of transparency. A trellis and purlins frame the skylight above the main living area, while latticework fragments the full-height windows that flank the stairwell. “It becomes a very subtractive and additive design process but in the end, it’s all about transparency and keeping things as simple and clean and minimalist as possible,” Simmons says.

The most staggering feats of engineering are the two 60-foot-long glass walls, which line opposing aspects of the residence. Each wall is made up of three sets of 20-foot sliding doors with only 4 inches of steel structure in between them, allowing for uncompromised views throughout. Like the other Marvin Modern products, the profile of each door is slim and inconspicuous. Recessed channels in the frames conceal motorized insect screens and blackout shades, while still providing consistent, narrow sightlines of less than three inches.

The swaths of glass are a portal to the organic terrain, rather than an obstruction. To that end, internal covers across the frames disguise fasteners and rubber gaskets, while low-gloss aluminum interior finishes and black spacer bars ensure an unimpeded outlook. This seamless finish allows inner and outer worlds to collide. In the warmer months when the doors are retracted, the covered deck becomes a natural extension of the interior floor plan.

Photo courtesy of Spacecrafting.

An interplay of modernist finesse and material resilience, this incredible waterfront home is a masterclass in building with glass. Negotiating challenging contextual and structural obstacles, the residence epitomizes the virtues of architectural minimalism. Simmons succinctly summarizes the scheme’s dual nature: “When you have this much glass, you feel like you’re a part of something out here, but you’re also being protected as well … Marvin gives us the tools to create environments such as this.”

To explore more case studies featuring Marvin Modern and learn how to harness windows and doors like these for your next project, click here.

All architectural drawings courtesy of Charlie and Co. Design; photography courtesy of Spacecrafting.

Reference

Create

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How to Create a Compelling Architectural Rendering Using Customizable Materials and Assets

1. Perfect your perspective.

2. Plan your lighting setup.

3. Customize your project materials.

4. Utilize realistic assets.

5. Fine-tune in post-production.

Sustainable Practice: How To Create a Concrete Oasis in a Forgotten Public Space

Architectural Details: How to Create a Stunning Minimalist Residence That Brings the Outside In

Making a Glass House Structurally Sound

Ensuring Impressive Thermal Efficiency

Blurring the Boundary Between Inside and Out

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