Month: June 2018

“Moriyama-San” – a film by Bêka & Lemoine – has been awarded the 2018 Best Prize at the Arquiteturas Film Festival in Lisbon. Centered around the famous Moriyama House by Pritzker Prize Laureate Ryue Nishizawa, it becomes part of a developing series called “Living Architectures,” in which the filmmakers aim to “put into question the fascination with the picture, which covers up the buildings with preconceived ideas of perfection, virtuosity, and infallibility.” In its unique approach, the film “masterfully combines image, sound, and narrative in a compelling story about a unique character and its relation to his house and music.”

This house extension and refurbishment transforms a Victorian terraced property in a Highbury conservation area. The brief was to create open plan spaces with an improved relationship to the garden, and a kitchen that could be enjoyed as a social space. The original kitchen was dark and had a very low ceiling height of just over two meters.

From a historical perspective, visiting a significant work of architecture only amounts to a fractional part of what it takes to understand its importance. Context is crucial; every project responds to the society around it as much as it does the site that it inhabits, and it represents a synthesis of precedents and a point of inspiration for works that follow. As recently featured in Metropolis Magazine, these dynamics take center stage in a new exhibition staged in Norman Foster’s seminal Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, a contemporary landmark built in 1978 on the campus of the University in East Anglia in Norwich, England. Entitled Superstructures: The New Architecture: 1960–1990, the exhibit explores the central trends in post-war 20th-century building design, highlighting the historical context of the Sainsbury Center itself on the occasion of the museum building’s 40th anniversary.

The project presents a complete interior refurbishment of the spa centre of hotel Kempinski Grand Arena Bansko, Bulgaria.

In Dnipro, Ukraine, sits a unique multi-purpose pavilion rich with historical roots and design influence. Stage is a collaborative project between architects from Ukraine, Poland, Denmark and Italy, crowdsourced and crowdfunded by the citizens of Dnipro. The site for the pavilion has been centered around community involvement throughout the complex history of Dnipro, but it has laid unused for over 70 years.

Sitting within one of the most prestigious residential areas in Metro Manila, Cuenca House is perched on a 535 sqm site in Ayala Alabang Village. The land, once belonging to a classic ‘White House’ commonly found in the area, was split from an original plot spanning 1600 sqm which the former owner divided into three. The new home occupies the middle plot, where the client envisioned a 2-story bungalow complete with a basement and swimming pool.

The project is located in Jing’an District of Shanghai, bordering the North-South Elevated Highway. The objective of the task is to create an innovative office and commercial complex that meets the reformed demand of working space.