Kyoai Gakuen University

 

Courtesy of BAKOKO

Japanese architects BAKOKO shared with us their project Kyoai Gakuen University, a new academic building located in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. You can see more images and architect’s description after the break.

Courtesy of BAKOKO

Kyoai Gakuen University sought proposals for a new building on part of the campus’ recreation grounds. Our design response was to not to build over this existing amenity space, but to lift it to a higher level, supported by the building underneath. The site is also located adjacent to the school’s sports field which currently lacks spectator seating. By sloping the roof in this direction, the proposal could provide additional value by providing seating for sports events.
In addition to being a valuable leisure space, the green roof has numerous sustainable benefits. Soil and biomass help to insulate the building, reducing the level of mechanical heating and cooling. Rainwater runoff is reduced and biodiversity is fostered within the roof’s trees and natural vegetation.

Courtesy of BAKOKO

Supporting the green roof is a grid of perforated concrete vaults. The curved form optimizes its compressive strength whilst being permeable to air and light. Similar structural strategies may be observed throughout biology – such as the intricate mineral skeletons that protect microscopic protozoa called radiolaria.
Wind catching caps are placed over certain openings to draw fresh cool air and natural daylight into the interior of the building. In bays without wind catchers, artificial light is reflected and diffused by the double-curved ceiling panels. The columns supporting each vault may appear massive, but the upper-half is in fact hollow. These water-tight depressions contain enough soil to support larger species of trees and vegetation than typically possible on green roofs.

Courtesy of BAKOKO

The choice of a vaulted structure seemed particularly apt in light of the school’s Christian affiliation and plans to build an adjacent chapel in the near future. The facade cuts cleanly through the structural grid, forming glazed arches facing onto the campus’ main thoroughfare and public plaza. Two opposite corners are cut through the top intersecting arches, creating cantilevered porches to protect the building’s main entrance.

Trang trại dưới lòng đất

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Environment Museum Annex

 

© Environment Museum Annex Competition (Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro)

Antonio Pedro Coutinho shared with us the entry he designed with Estelle Dugachard, Fabiana Araújo, Nanda Eskes, Ricardo Caruana for the competition regarding the expansion of the Environment Museum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The main challenge dealt in this competition was finding a way where the architecture would be inserted on the ecosystem where it was being planned; the magnificent Botanical Garden of the city of Rio de Janeiro.
More images and description after the break.

© Environment Museum Annex Competition (Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro)

The project aimed to be in a way an example of how human constructions can deal and work together with their natural processes and surroundings. Due to the museum’s environment theme, the project itself was thought to be inserted in the pedagogical process in which visitors were exposed to, learning by the construction of the museum itself how we can deal in a better way with nature. The Project interacts with the natural environment since the project and landscape design as well as the selection of low emitting building materials.

© Environment Museum Annex Competition (Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro)

Landscape design: “Water as the equilibrium for the ecosystem”
The botanical garden of Rio de Janeiro is located in a very important hydrographic basin of the city. It is situated on the intersection of very important distinct ecosystems such as mountain forests, various sources of rivers and marshy lowlands. The biggest problem of this complex environment is that the site suffers serious damages on rainy seasons, causing serious floods periodically. The projects creates flooding areas on the landscape so that the rainwater can be stored, reused by the building and park maintenance, and also help the great volume of rain to be slowly absorbed back to the soil causing no damages to the surroundings. It is also intended to explore the rich and diverse aquatic Brazilian ecosystem, with a huge variety of plant species being added for the collection of the botanical garden. These aquatic plants would be responsible for the recycling and treatment of the water for multi uses. The landscape design was thought to be self-explanatory of new ways where our cities can deal with our waters in a very harmonious and healthy way.

© Environment Museum Annex Competition (Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro)

Structure
The building concept was thought by investigating historical typologies of botanical garden buildings and the Brazilian indigenous hut techniques. It was chosen to work with reforested pine(“pinus caribea” ) wood. By this choice, we ensure that the building’s structure is being thought in a very sustainable way, despite all its advantages in relation to steel structures. Its external structure was thought as a membrane where it would work as a climate control, but at the same time keeping both internal and external spaces in constant relation. The main intention of the project is to reconnect the visitors to the natural habitats. To show visitors how architecture can be able to walk close and be benefitted by the natural processes in a harmonious environment.

Nature Centre by EFFEKT

This visitor centre by Danish architects EFFEKT will have a series of ramped green roofs and sit at the heart of the Hareskoven forest in Copenhagen.

The Nature Centre will cover a thousand square-metres and house research facilities, exhibition spaces, rentable rooms and a café.

The star-shaped plan is inspired by a series of hunting pathways created by a former king that disperse from two points in the forest.

The building consists of five regularly shaped wings that each have separate functions and panoramic views.

The building will be triple-glazed and off the grid with water provided from a local well.

Here are more details from the architect:

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Nature Centre: The visitors centre is situated in the pristine forest of Hareskoven in the vicinity of Copenhagen. It is a portal to the almost 1 million visitors that uses the forest annually.

It hosts a 1000 square meter large visitor centre with café, exhibition space, rental, learning and research facilities and a caretaker’s residence.

The building is shaped like a star resembling the pathways in the forest that surrounds it. The pathways used to be a part of the old kings hunting grounds. They could provide a panoramic overview over the position of the prey in the forest. Now they serve as a historical memory and are a beautiful and unique feature of Hareskoven.

Landscape and building:
The building is designed in a simple gesture. The star shaped roof is a lifted landscape creating a series of panoramic rooms looking on into the forest.

In two of the five wings the roof slopes down to the ground making it accessible and part of the forest. Visitors can then either choose to walk through or over the building when entering the forest.

The floor is carved out of the hill proving varied parapet along the facades. The typology is carefully positioned so that in two places the floor and surroundings are in level providing a level free access to the central lobby and exhibition space and access into the forest.

Inner life:
The central lobby is the collective and organic shaped space of the building. It hosts the exhibition and multipurpose space.

Each wing then contains a separate function and can function independent with a local entrance when necessary. The regular shape of the independent wings allows maximum functionality of each room.

The envelope is a three layer glass facade for maximum energy performance and transparency at the same time.

All inner walls are covered with wood resembling the surrounding trees to give the feeling of still being inside the forest.

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A sustainability concept that draws on the natural aspects of the forest:
The unique position inside the forest has directly inspired the solutions for sustainability in the project. The building itself becomes a practical example on how solutions for sustainability works in buildings and users can experience and learn about the subject when visiting the centre. In the entrance an ‘energy barometer’ will update the energy consumption and inform users on the buildings activity.

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The building uses the natural green climate regulation that is provided by the surrounding deciduous forest. During summer time the density of the leaves will protect against overheating and during winter time the bare trees allows for the sun to heat up the building.

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The buildings position in the hill allows it to ‘hibernate’, using free earth cooling during summer and heating during winter.

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A building ‘Off the grid’:
The building is designed to be off the grid. Clean water is accessed through a local well in the forest and the wastewater is purified in a local root zone bed. The building utilizes earth energy providing a sustainable and off grid solution for heating the building.

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An energy producing building:
The building is powered by a local array of solar panels positioned at the edge of the forest. These are the only part of the building linked up to the surrounding cities supply grids.

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During peak hours this facility produces more energy than needed and delivers energy back to the grid. This enables the building to become an energy producing building in total.

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Awards:
The Nature centre is shortlisted for WAF2010 in the category Future Projects: Education. The Nature centre was recently voted winner in the 7th cycle in the world architecture community.

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Team:
Sinus Lynge, Tue Hesselberg Foged, Jakob Nørbjeg Madsen, Marcin Kropidlo, Josephine Giller, Søren Martinussen, Tina Lund Højgaard

Floating gardens

Dutch architect Anne Holtrop has collaborated with green technology firm Studio Noach and botanist Patrick Blanc to propose an artificial floating island containing gardens and a spa.

The floating gardens / Spa Wellness Amsterdam project would contain baths and treatment rooms on the inside while the outside would be covered with hydroponic greenery.

The proposal is currently on show at Architecture of Consequences – Dutch designs on the Future at the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam.

Here’s some info from Holtrop:

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floating gardens / Spa Wellness Amsterdam If architecture is a landscape full of non-coherent but co-existing elements. A landscape where different uses, social relations, spatial organizations and political viewpoints can co-exist simultaneously. If this situation is being emphasized, rather than straighten out, new possibilities can emerge that would otherwise never be found.

The floating gardens design relates with that intention: building on water, architecture and landscape, private & public use and many more aspects.

A surface is – apart from the waterside – probably the most neutral environment for architecture. It is difficult to imagine the architecture of the country to continue on the water. But what architectural form can be found for a building on the water? The approach for floating gardens is to create a construction of a landscape. Like a stone of Alberto Giacometti is a construction of a stone.

The architecture makes the walls and ceilings the outer for hills and valleys. Inside the interior follows the counter form of the landscape. Amorphous areas with faceted ceilings, all of different sizes and heights, blend as one.

A visitor will walk from room to room and experience a sequence of baths, panoramic saunas, chill and relax areas. From the interior, the frame the constructed landscape and give access to outdoor terraces and pools. From thereon paths continue over the hills and through the valleys connecting different spaces.
The persons who walk here, will see a combination of water, vegetation and architecture, which gratifies the human desire for a world that is visible and tangible. Architecture constructs a landscape, a landscape is inhabited. Interior and exterior, landscape and architecture are one.
Credits
architect: Anne Holtrop (in collaboration with Roderik van der Weijden)
developer: Studio Noach (Kizito Musampa and Michel Kreuger)
botanist: Patrick Blanc
location: Amsterdam IJburg surface area: 2.000 m2
extra information
Vegetation
Patrick Blanc who designs his Living Walls all over the world explains: “Do plants really need soil? No, … Earth is no more than a tool. Just water containing minerals and nutrients, along with common daylight and carbon dioxide are necessary for plants to make photosynthesis possible. ”
Blanc has proven his expertise on many locations including museums around the world. From the perspective of nature it is possible for plants to grow on a surface where there is no soil. As long as there’s no shortage of water.
“Floating Gardens / Spa Wellness Amsterdam’ has been developed for the lake near the city where plenty of fresh water is available. A similar island has never been developed anywhere else. A floating sustainable biotope, using recycled materials with a vegetation coating that from its pores literally breaths oxygen and wellness is unique for our planet.
Sustainability
The composite GreenRexwall TM was developed in collaboration with the German constructor Aquahouse GmbH and is that strong and constructive that building cement, steel or bricks are no longer needed. The ultimate isolates, is constructive, and light – not important – it is particularly buoyant. Not just the recycling of polystyrene is environmentally friendly Floating Gardens, the vegetation on the walls and roof, CO2 is converted to oxygen, and particulate matter demolished.
The vegetation is a breeding ground for birds, butterflies and insects but most will feel at home. The innovative technical installations provide big energy savings. The surrounding water acts as a heat exchanger, like a refrigerator works conversely. It can serve as heat – and cooling source and is up 70% more efficient than conventional energy systems.

Cottages at Fallingwater

Patkau Architects of Vancouver have won a competition to design six houses in the nature reserve surrounding Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house in Pennsylvania.

The six houses will be submerged in the landscape of Bear Run Nature Reserve and provide accommodation for visitors involved in the Fallingwater Institute’s educational programs.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

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Patkau Architects chosen as winner of design competition for on-site cottages at Fallingwater A jury has chosen Patkau Architects of Vancouver, British Columbia, as the winner of its first-ever design competition for on-site cottages that will support residential educational programming at the Frank Lloyd Wright masterwork in Fayette County.

The second-place winner of the competition is Phoenix, Ariz.-based Wendell Burnette Architects, and Olson Kundig Architects of Seattle, Wash., has been chosen as the third-place winner.

Patkau Architects’ winning design for six small, efficient, sustainable cottages will serve as the basis of a final design, to be implemented following regulatory approval and fundraising.

“In its subtlety, it is provocative and it carries forward the discourse about where architecture can move,” the jury said of the winning design. “Its strength is not just in what is included, but in what is left out.”

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The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, which preserves and maintains Fallingwater, will build the cottages on the grounds of the 5,000-acre Bear Run Nature Reserve that surrounds Fallingwater, some distance from the house itself. The design competition is the first that Fallingwater has sponsored for construction of new buildings on-site.

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The new cottages will serve an important outreach goal by expanding lodging capacity for participants in Fallingwater Institute’s diverse educational programs. These unique, immersive educational offerings are tailored to broad age levels and interests – and to people from the Western Pennsylvania region and beyond.

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“When Edgar Kaufmann, jr. entrusted Fallingwater to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, he envisioned education as a critical component of Fallingwater’s new role as a public resource.

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He saw Fallingwater as not merely available to the public, but as a force that could continue to drive the development of architecture and good design as well as advance their appreciation and understanding,” said Lynda Waggoner, director of Fallingwater and vice president of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

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“He said, ‘Fallingwater grew and still grows.’ We feel that the winning design by Patkau Architects will allow Fallingwater to grow by actively demonstrating the principles we espouse: good design in harmony with nature.”

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