Month: July 2019

Between Shanghai’s crowded meat markets, bundles of wires, vivid neon lights, and dense smogs, lie the historic ‘Shikumen’ lane houses. Built between the end of the 19th century and World War II, these houses were inspired by French and British Colonial and Art Deco styles and the Chinese ‘Hutong’ housing style. But time for these aged ornate structures is running out, as all the Shikumen lane houses across Shanghai are being torn down.

Between Shanghai’s crowded meat markets, bundles of wires, vivid neon lights, and dense smogs, lie the historic ‘Shikumen’ lane houses. Built between the end of the 19th century and World War II, these houses were inspired by French and British Colonial and Art Deco styles and the Chinese ‘Hutong’ housing style. But time for these aged ornate structures is running out, as all the Shikumen lane houses across Shanghai are being torn down.

The house finds itself in a closed condominium in the periphery of Lisbon, sitting in a small slope facing south. A set of white volumes balance each other, drawing and hierarchizing the interior spaces, they create voids that relate to the exterior. 

IN.architects did not intend to isolate the house but treat it like a selective membrane that allows people and views to pass through.
The post IN.architects encloses a house in a permeable boundary wall in chinese village appeared first on designboom …

The Hang Glider House was built in the neighborhood of Itanhanga, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The house is located by the foot of Tijuca Forrest, and the Pedra da Gavea Mountain. The mountain provides scenic views, and it is used as jumping platforms for Hang Gliders, which serve as inspiration for the geometry of the house.

Our primary design response for the Hawthorn House was to first recalibrate the entire project site into a large and singular terrace; one grand outdoor theatre for living which peels upwards at each title boundary to form a living garden backdrop that would appear at every viewpoint from the living areas of the home. Within this garden platform, the house is defined by a pair of heavily textured concrete shrouds, each with its own proportion and personality, linked together by a walkway and courtyard garden. The arched concrete shrouds evolved as a method of structurally supporting the house with its own skin; designed to be understood as protective cloak rather than as signifiers of support. These shrouds provide the framework for how the spaces within the home relate to each other and to the external environment. From the first floor the context appears denied, however these more private bathing and sleeping spaces are pulled away from the ends of the solid skin which allows each elevated pavilion to look out through full height glazing onto their own private courtyards full of plants, sky and tree canopy. At ground floor within the living, cooking and dining spaces the concrete shells provide clear connectivity with the entire landscape and a sense of unexpected lightness, while carefully concealing the neighbouring context. 

Location + Site
The project is in a company town named Tuopai Zhen in Sichuan where the distillery of Shede, an old liquor brand in China, is based. The closest large cities are Chengdu and Chongqing, both are approximately 200 kilometers away. Partially due to its relatively quiet location, Tuopai Zhen seems to maintain both the ambience of an industrial town and a rural village before the economic reform that was commenced in China in the late 1970’s. The specific site for this visitor’s center is situated in front of the production campus of Shede near a main thoroughfare with a park and a river on the other side.