Articles by Cristobal Rojas

The suburb of Clifton on Cape Town’s Atlantic Seaboard has a high rate of foot traffic due to it’s scenic beauty, with residents and tourists being keen joggers and walkers. It was a deliberate design intention to take this fact into consideration – in a neighborhood characterized by high blank boundary walls and overpowering building mass.

The project is situated on a site with a natural slope, an admirable view facing north and a beautiful lake. The main idea was to minimally change the original site, but at the same time provide some sights of the extremally beautiful landscape of the forest.

It is the last days of winter. The weather is going crazy again. The pressure to finish everything before new year has pushed everyone to the streets. It’s as if it were a small rehearsal for the end of the world. We see each other in this mayhem. When there’s no time to start anything and everything must finish in the fastest way possible. We start in a weather for which we’re not quite sure how to dress, minutes away for the alarm to ring, some steps behind the finish line. It is 10 o’clock, March 10th, 2017. Our meeting is on the first floor at The Contemporary Architects Association.

Lộc House is a living space of a family with 2 young daughters. The space’s intention is to connect the family members’ activities together. The house’s common area features a small courtyard roofed by a veranda, where the children can enjoy the open space. Lộc house’s colorful veranda casts wavy silhouettes on the wood clad floor.

What started as a need for a simple orchard barn grew into something much grander. The design for this vacation retreat, entertainment facility, and working barn balances a desire for nostalgia with contemporary requirements and stunning views. Set within twelve acres of agricultural land in central Washington state, the site offers views to Lake Chelan and the Cascade Mountain Range. Inspired by sketches developed by the clients, the 10,740-square-foot barn features a ground floor entertainment area complete with a commercial kitchen, storage for orchard equipment, a below-grade wine cellar, and second floor guest rooms and living areas. 

In the middle of the local urban center, embedded between facades of different height, stands a braided fence of natural rods that reaches the roof of the neighboring building – the former Manuel Siurot School – which, after sliding gently on the pavement, unfolds before the pedestrian of Miguel Hernández street, a semi-covered urban courtyard inspired by the covered promenades of the region.

The site is a vineyard located above Cloverdale on a steep south slope overlooking the valley below. Stands of mature oaks and rock outcroppings frame the existing pool and house site. A 1970s kit log home with few connections to the land or views occupied the ideal location above the pool. Our strategy was to utilize all of the existing site improvements and reuse the wood from the existing kit log structure to build a new 2150 square foot house that would open out to the land and take advantage of the expansive views and south facing exposure.   

A re-conceptualized and renovated “grand palestra” designed by Bernard Tschumi Architects was recently unveiled for the exhibition Pompeii and the Greeks, with an installation designed by the firm, at the site of the excavations of the ancient city of Pompeii.The Palestra Grande, a simple, striking colonnade with an almost relentless linear order, had been enclosed and obscured during previous exhibitions; BTA removed all recent materials and introduced glazing so as to open up and accentuate the length and narrow dimensions of the gallery. In the exhibition installation, suspended screens in the brilliant hues favored during antiquity define each gallery with a different color and provide supports for text, images, and projections. Organized by the Soprintendenza Pompeii with Electa, Pompeii and the Greeks remains on view through November 27, 2017 and will travel to museums in London, Karlsruhe, and Athens, among other cities.

The aim of the project was to design a young couple´s first owned house with a very low budget to accommodate the new family´s unit structure: the birth their first child. Residencia Laura, named after their daughter, it’s honest and direct in every way. Its relationship with the street and city is through a very open front façade.

Two white rough-plastered structures silently embrace the early XIXth century school building. These volumes create a courtyard around an old chesnut tree that becomes the central element of the project.