Steel

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9 10 2022

Attic Enlargement Carried out in Basel

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture Architecture, Living, Roof, Single-family house, Steel

Architecture: Piertzovanis Toews
Client: Private
Location: Basel (CH)

In enlarging the attic of a house in Basel, the Piertzovanis Toews practice went for a structurally unconventional solution to create space for a studio and a guestroom. In the part of Basel in question – Kleinbasel’s Matthäus quarter – many typical workers’ housing estates came about between 1890 and 1900. Small crafts workshops were frequently built in the backyards of the respective perimeter blocks, but later put to new uses.

© Simone Bossi

It was at such a workshop building that the planning team was asked to make the attic usable by raising it in height. The two-storey house had already undergone several changes over the years but now the owners wanted a multi-purpose space under the roof for working and domestic purposes. Emphasis was placed on minimal interventions and re-use of existing materials rather than large structural alterations.

In the enlargement work, the eaves and ridge of the single-pitch roof were left unchanged; rather, the architects divided the space horizontally in the middle in that they lowered the bottom half and raised the upper one.

© Simone Bossi

Between the two they inserted a long sliding ribbon window with an unusual supporting structure – a ring-shaped element in green steel – in the middle. Designed as a decorative structural element and bearing the complete load of the roof above the existing supporting structure, it eludes all logic and despite all the forces involved makes a visually weightless in impression.

© Simone Bossi

Corrugated zinc sheeting on the exterior bears witness to the building’s industrial past while the floorboards and beams of the original structure found re-use in the interior. Dismantled and partially repainted or otherwise treated, the old elements now lend special charm to the attic with their cracks and dents. The architects also incorporated prefabricated plywood panels.

© Simone Bossi

In addition to the ring-shaped support, a washbasin is the enlarged attic’s second eye-catcher, its formwork incorporating old finds made in the turnery that was once in the building. Now the imprints of old rods and sections of frame embellish its surface as a reference back to the former wood workshop.

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Photos by © Simone Bossi.

Galerija

14 9 2022

Reading Between the Lines

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture, Sacred architecture Architecture, Church, Sacred architecture, Steel

Architects: Gijs Van Vaerenbergh
Location: CHURCHES LOOZ, BELGIUM
Photographs: Filip Dujardin

‘Reading between the lines’ is a project by the duo Gijs Van Vaerenbergh, a collaboration between young Belgian architects Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout Van Vaerenbergh. Since 2007, they have been realizing projects in public space together that start from their architectural background, but have an artistic intention. Their projects do not always originate out of the initiative of a classical client, for example, and carry a large degree of autonomy. Their primary concerns are experiment, reflection, a physical involvement with the end result and the input of the viewer.

‘Reading between the lines’ is part of ‘pit’, an artistic trajectory with works by some ten artists in the region of Borgloon-Heers (in the Flemish province of Limburg). ‘Pit’ will be the first part of the exhibition project Z-OUT, an initiative in which Z33, the contemporary art museum of the city of Hasselt, presents art in public space (see also www.z33.be). On September 24th, Gijs Van Vaerenbergh will reveal a construction in the rural landscape, by a cycle route, that’s based on the design of the local church. This ‘church’ consists of 30 tons of steel and 2000 columns, and is built on a fundament of armed concrete. Through the use of horizontal plates, the concept of the traditional church is transformed into a transparent object of art.

Depending on the perspective of the viewer, the church is either perceived as a massive building, or dissolves — partly or completely — into the landscape. Those viewers that look from the inside of the church to the outside, on the other hand, witness an abstract play of lines that reshapes the surrounding landscape. In this way, church and landscape can both be considered part of the work — hence also its title, which implies that to read between the lines, one must also read the lines themselves. In other words: the church makes the subjective experience of the landscape visible, and vice versa.

‘Reading between the lines’ can be read as a reflection on architectural themes such as scale, the ground plan etc., but the project also emphatically transcends the strictly architectural. After all, the church does not have a well-defined function and focuses on visual experience in itself (one could even consider it to be a line drawing in space). At the same time, the construction demonstrates that this experience is in effect a consequence of the design, since it explicitly refers to the various stages in its conception: the design drawing, the model… Apart from that, because the church does not fulfil its classical function, it can be read as a heritage related reflection on the present vacancy of churches in the area (and their potential artistic reuse).

All these layers merge in one work of art that is open to various readings, from a strictly architectural one to an artistic one. At the same time, ‘Reading between the lines’ is an accessible spatial intervention that gives, among others, a cyclist that happens to ride past, an unexpected visual experience.

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Galerija

24 8 2022

Earth House near Osaka by Tomohiro Hata

Blanka de Far 2022, Architecture, Interior design, Living comfort Architecture, Concrete, Roof terrace, Single-family house, Skeleton construction, Steel

Architecture: Tomohiro Hata
Client: Tetsuya Matsuoka
Location: 2-chōme-6-14 Asahigaoka, Ikeda, Osaka 563-0022 (JP)

Structural engineering: Takashi Manda
Landscape architecture: Toshiya Ogino
Lighting design: Daiko Electric
Contractor: Asa Kenchikukoumu

Large two- or three-storey houses on small plots and narrow gardens frequently hidden behind high walls typify the extensive residential areas in Ikeda, a suburb north of downtown Osaka.

The Earth House by Tomohiro Hata was designed for a client who wanted more contact with nature and a building that is meant to be long-lasting and – as so often in Japan – not demolished well before the end of its technical lifespan and replaced by a new one.

The architects’ response to this challenge brings nature into the house – not on the ground floor alone but likewise on the rest. A forest of round steel supports bear the floor slabs, provided concavely curved edges to make room for the trees and bushes. The latter are rooted not only in the garden but also in trough planters on the deeply cantilevered terrace decks of the upper floor and the roof. The steel supports also stiffen the construction – the house not having a concrete core, not even for the elevator.

Three staircases connect the storeys in the building, namely two internal, more functional ones, and an external one in a small, covered inner court, where the architects have crossed stairways leading to the flat roof to stage movement through the building.

The structural system of the Earth House and its interior works are completely separate. Solely non-load-bearing stud walls and expanses of steel-framed glazing enclose the rooms, which facilitates later alteration. The exterior of the few load-bearing walls is clad in titanium sheeting. Inside, the architects used oak boards for the floors, the ceilings and also the walls.

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