House N / Sou Fujimoto

By Nico Saieh

Architects: Sou Fujimoto Architects
Location: Oita, Japan
Project Team: Yumiko Nogiri
Structural Consultant: Jun Sato Structural Engineers
Design Year: 2006-2007
Construction Year: 2007-2008
Site Area: 236,57 sqm
Constructed Area: 150,57 sqm
Photographer: Iwan Baan

via ArchDaily

Lim Geo Dang

By Emeline Paik (former Domus Academy student)

In South Korea, the Nation’s economy has developed rapidly since the Korean War. To reconstruct the deserted and wounded land, change was forced by the government, technology was introduced as solution and help from the West was welcomed. Soon, dusty roads were paved and wooden houses were turned into concrete buildings. As a result, South Korea became one of the most modern and technologically advanced countries in the world today, but at the cost of historical and traditional Korean quality.

Recently, in Korea, people turn to their once forgotten tradition and culture for comfort away from the stressful modern city lifestyle. This new tradition-wave transformed the aged old forms into practical designs but keeping its original characteristics.

Lim Geo Dang, (‘the Forest to live in’) is an example of the new living trend. The wooden box-shaped building floats above concrete piloti creating a unique spatial quality of Korean architecture: the open connection.

Furnishing and finishes are kept minimal to fully appreciate the space and its natural surroundings. Concrete structural foundation and pine tree finishes are the only materials introduced to present the marriage of tradition and modernity.

The concept of this architecture, open connection, continues with courtyards. Courtyards play an important role in traditional Korean houses. Both exterior and interior courtyards serve as a hallway connecting different rooms and levels. Courtyards are the entryway, stairs and platforms of the house.

The duplex with an underground level carries total of 8 courtyards in different floors. They intersect horizontally and vertically that can be reached by taking a few steps from one another. Following the courtyards, a pathway is revealed to travel inside the house. They close and open spaces, go up and down and introduce infinite continuity and fluidity of the space.

On the first floor, interior courtyards interconnect living room, kitchen / dining room, bathroom and garage. A full height window in living room overlooks the underground courtyard. The underground level is a place of calm and serenity where study and guest room are located. Even though it’s below the ground level, a small courtyard with open sky sits between the two rooms allowing full day light to reach in. Traditional translucent paper sliding doors are used in these rooms that can lift up as well, therefore in summer, or during the day, these paper doors can be fixed onto the ceiling and function as windows or blinds.
Second floor is used as the family floor including family room, master bedroom, children’s bedroom, children’s study, library hallway, and bathroom. The communal floor has large windows for beautiful Jung Bal mountain scenery.

In Lim Geo Dang, courtyards not only interconnect spaces but the time that has passed and that breathes today. Every corner, they await to welcome to the next room or to the past and this unique space of old and new carries on its value in the name of New Tradition. Domus Sensor

 

via DOMUS

Hotel Habita Monterrey in Mexico

text by Maya Jordan for DeZona

Hotel Habita Monterrey
Opened in August this year, Hotel Habita Monterrey strikes with captivating architectural desicions by Agustin Landa and a rooftop pool bar that offers a 360-degree view combined with the comfort of a cool concrete canopy. The interior design is courtesy of Parisian Joseph Dirand and includes some of the most prominent furniture pieces like Swan Chair and Swan Sofa by Arne Jacobsen…

Opening Date August 2008

•39 rooms 
• 1 penthouse suite with living room, bathtub, gym and private terrace
• 2 loft suites with living room and bathtub
• 8 junior suites with bathtub
• 4 double rooms with two full size beds and bath tub
• 12 corner rooms with bathtub
• 12 standard rooms with bathtub

Rates
Range from 165.00 USD to 975.00 USD
Floor Distribution
• 8th floor roof top terrace, pool bar, solarium and two pools
• 7th to 2nd floor rooms
• 1st floor Habita books, lounge, restaurant, bar, business center and terrace
• ground floor front desk and lobby
• plaza gym, spa and shops 
 

Amenities
House wine, 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Grenache, winemaker Jose Luis Durand Aesop amenities, ac, wireless internet, message center, x box elite, Nokia tablet 8800, dock station, minibar, safe deposit box, 24 hrs. room service, 24 hrs. security system and valet parking

General Manager: Santiago Leon De La Vega, Mexico City
Executive Chef: Enrique Olvera, Mexico City
Architecture: Landa Arquitectos, Monterrey, Mexico City / Agustin Landa
Interior Design: Joseph Dirand, Paris, France
Vintage Selection: Claudia Fernandez, Mexico City
Project Manager: Adriana Diaz, Mexico City
Branding: Cadena + Asoc. Branding, Monterrey, Mexico, Ignacio Cadena
Music Concept: Xavier Artus, Paris, France

via Yatzer

DeZona, Hotel Habita Monterrey , Agustin Landa , Joseph Dirand

4010: New Mobile Phone Store in Berlin

images courtesy S+SPR

via 4010 and berlin.unlike

The Word today: Frugality

We are still very much in the deep end of the finanacial crisis and some are finding values they never thought they had. The word to learn is Frugality, this week issue of Business Week is looking into America's new (un)shopping habit. There is also an article on teenagers learning frugality in the New York Times. If they can't afford it in the real world, it might be best to buy it in the virtual world: according to Gaia Chief Executive Craig Sherman, "as the 'real world' gets worse, virtual worlds get better."
Last but not least Thom Fordes is also looking at the issue, read the article below

Enjoy but with moderation

As Financial Markets Tumble, Consumerism Is Under Siege

Bill Moyers Journal, NOW, Real Time With Bill Maher, The New York Times, Detroit Free Press, “What Would Jesus Buy?” Financial Times, CNN/Money, Brandweek, Ad Age I don't know about your media experiences over the weekend, but everywhere I looked I was being hit on the head with the message that the day of reckoning over our excesses occurred at some unspecified hour last week. Having willfully overextended ourselves and blithely consumed far more than we produced for far too long, we are all going to hell in an empty shopping cart along with the buy-now-pay-later society we created. Not good news for people who sell things, in other words, from overextended houses to electronic gimcracks and Christmas gewgaws. But let's start out with a message of hope. On Friday evening, Bill Moyers conducted a fascinating interview with financier George Soros, who says that the motor of our economy for 25 years -- consumption -- has sputtered out. But Soros believes "we can create a new motor to deal with one of the main aspects of our over-consumption problem -- energy," according to a synopsis of the chat on the "Bill Moyers Journal" site. "Combating global warming will require a huge amount of effort -- the amount of change and development that can restart an economy," Soros maintains. Earlier in the evening, David Brancaccio ran a piece on "NOW," establishing the relationship between high gas prices and drastically lowered real estate values in exurbia. The underlying message was that we will have to get back to planning communities in which people can walk/bike/take public transit -- a decidedly different concept than what has driven growth in recent decades. We'll see how it plays out. I love walking to, and buying from, the vendors at the Farmer's Market in my small, walkable village that's 35 minutes by rail from Grand Central Terminal. But I spend a lot more money each week at a combination of the A&P, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Costco, all of which I drive to. Sheepishly, I admit that I don't see that changing. Later Friday night, Bill Maher's "Real Time" interview with former Controller General David Walker on HBO was truly scary. According to Walker, the true national debt is $55 trillion -- or $480,000 per household (and our median HH income is less than $50,000). According a Detroit Free Press analysis of the middle-class debt crises this morning, the average household already holds more than $110,000 in mortgage and other debt, against annual personal savings of around $400. Walker, for his part, has been sounding the drumbeat against our wastrel ways for a while; the documentary "I.O.U.S.A." features him crisscrossing the nation warning about the federal government's unsustainable fiscal policies. In fact, many of the media messengers this weekend have an "I told you so" tone, making me wonder how we could all get caught with our fiscal pants down. Where were all these Cassandras a few months ago? Or why weren't we listening to them? What made us think we could get away with our behavior this time, if it always caught up with us in the past? On Sunday, the Times' Thomas Friedman wrote , "We are where we are today because we went on a credit binge and we're now paying the price ... A lot of wealth is going to be wiped out." Across the op-ed spread, Maureen Dowd 's second graf reads, "The decline and fall of the American Empire echoes the experience of the Romans ..." Jim Dwyer, meanwhile, took us inside Civil Court in Manhattan on Saturday. "What happens in the civil courts are the last tremors of an economy built around the twin seductions of consumption and debt, a dance portrayed in "In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts," a 2007 documentary by Danny Schechter," he writes. Okay, maybe we weren't paying attention. And wouldn't it just be my luck that "What Would Jesus Buy?" worked its way to the top of my Netflix queue this weekend? Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir believe that "the corporations" want us to have experiences only through their products. Beyond wagging its finger for excess consumerism and making the familiar point that big-box stores have not been kind to Main Street shopping in small towns across America, the documentary connects the dots between our easy access to credit and the shopping boom. Many is the time I've been told that a book idea is really a magazine article; you may see all you need to see by watching the movie's trailer . Joe Nocera, whose Saturday column in the Times is often spot-on, quotes James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, about why, as a species, we are prone to repeated "bouts of financial insanity." "Money, like sex, brings out some thought -- but also much heavy breathing and little stored knowledge," Grant says. "In finance, the process is cyclical. Some people learn from their ancestors, but mostly they repeat the same mistakes." Fascinating stuff

Comme des garçons pocket store

Comme des garçons just opened 2 pocket stores 31 rue Debelleyme in Paris (15/17m2)
You can find a pemanent collection Play men, women and children but also Shirt Forever, perfumes and leater goods. Cute.

More on the pocket trends it's all about giving: Comme des garçons is into friendly neighbourhood shopping, targeting what we call in France 'Bobos' (english boho) and offering them the chance to have the shop at their doorsteps.

via Guide Paris Mode

Art installation at Clark Shoes International Headquarters / ROSO

ROSO has launched a major art installation at Clark Shoes Headquarters in Street Somerset, South England. This was commissioned by Mr Lance Clark and is the first phase of two, of the art work situated in the communal court yard in the heart of Clarks office buildings.

Concept

The installation itself was developed from a single observation - Light is only seen when reflected. A light beam coming through a window is only visible because light is reflected in the millions of dust particles floating in the air.

Approach

Roso’s approach was to create a dynamic, ever changing space where the space itself would be a major part of the installation.

Two imaginary beams of light enter the courtyard from one end and travel through the space, penetrating the centre bridge building, one hitting the end wall up high, above the terrace and the other the side wall opposite this. The entire courtyard was painted white and the bottom was covered in black asphalt to turn the court yard into a canvas for the reflections and shadows from the installation.

As wind and light changes during the day and the seasons, the dynamic of the installation alters - sometimes wild, illuminating the entire space, at other times calm reflecting the colors of the surroundings on grey days.

The installation and the space is merged - one cannot exist without the other. Offices and staircases are penetrated by the light and shadows coming from the art work, extending the effect into the building themselves, making the installation an integral part of the Clark Shoes head quarters.

Each beams is made up by 7.500 shiny discs suspended from 36 vertical wires, which mounted on a structure on the central bridge building and onto the end walls.
The discs themselves reflects the incoming sunlight from the top part of the yard down into the shadowy bottom below and the walls on the side. They also reflect the colors of the surroundings, as well as have a pixilating effect as they either reflect light or are black when in shadow depending on the angle they have.

Background

Roso was approached by Mr. Lance Clark of Clark Shoes International, to propose an installation that would bring life into the very dull and dark central courtyard in the Clark shoes international headquarters in Street, Somerset in South west England. The court yard is situated in the heart of the old Clarks factory now housing the offices of 1500 employees. This is part of the factory’s social centre - the canteen, which extends into the courtyard via an outdoors terrace where the employees can enjoy their breaks.

The physical space of the courtyard has a strong dynamic in itself - the space is 25m long, 7 meters wide and 4 storeys high with a central bridge building, connecting the two sides. This bridge building divides the court yard into two spaces, one being the terrace side and the other just an empty courtyard with no designated usage. The space is isolated from the outside world and is partially shielded from sunlight and wind, which meant that the space had potential but rendered very dull and un-dynamic in it’s original state.

via ArchDaily

Sarugaku - backstreet shopping mall

Who would think about building an open-air shopping mall on a piece of land that measures only 5,791 square feet? A young architect named Akihisa Hirata has taken the challenge.

In the middle of Tokyo alleys, a set of 6 small buildings offers spaces for 10 retailers well back from main streets.

Sarugaku (the name of the mall) in the trendy and chic Daikanyama district is about to celebrate its one-year anniversary next week.

above images: © Nacasa & Partners

via What we do is Secret