JTS engineering blog

Here’s another loopy bridge for China (see our earlier story about NL Architects’ concept), this time a foot bridge for Xinjin in the Sichuan province by New York studio WXY Architecture and Weidlinger Associates Consulting Engineers.

Called Nanhe River Landscape Bridge, the red bridge will cross the river in two interlaced strands.

Construction is due to begin later this year.

Here’s some more information from WXY Architecture:

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Nanhe River Landscape Bridge by WXY Architecture

WXY Architecture and Weidlinger Associates have won a competition to build the Nanhe River Landscape Bridge in Xinjin County, China.

Xinjin is a historical town that has attracted many residents and visitors over the years. It is geographically centered where five rivers converge, and for centuries poets have exalted its natural beauty. Our design draws inspiration from Xinjin’s breathtaking landscape and rich cultural history, and reflects the city’s modern prosperity.

Featuring two individual and intertwining bridges that form a braided pattern, the Nanhe River Landscape Bridge evokes the flow of the river it crosses – and like the main path in a great park, the journey across the bridge is an experience unto itself.

The two intertwined ribbons serve a practical purpose by greatly expanding the capacity of the bridge to allow it to keep pace with Xinjin’s future growth. Embedded in its distinctive design is one path for pedestrians and another for bicycles. The two paths offer pedestrians and cyclists different perspectives and varying vistas along their journey across the structure.

Click above for larger image

The five oval rings formed by the lines of bridge decks are symbolic of the five rivers that converge on Xinjin; in turn, the bridge is supported by five multi-limbed supports, which increase the current spacing for watercraft and other recreational uses of the river. The complex form of the bridge is derived from the linear extrusion of a simple steel box girder. Its bright red color will resonate against the grey blue colors of Xinjin’s hillside landscape.

Click above for larger image

For residents and visitors, esplanades on both sides of the river provide important places to view and access the Nanhe. The Nanhe River Landscape Bridge springs seamlessly from these esplanades, and extends the park-like experience across the river in the centuries-long tradition of Chinese landscape bridges. Thus a contemporary symbol of Xinjin is born that draws inspiration from the city’s most timeless qualities.

blogged by: Jake Shea

This office building in the Belgian hills by architects Atelier Vens Vanbelle has a brick facade broken by huge windows overlooking the surrounding farmland.

The offices, waiting room and kitchen open out to the views on two sides, turning away from the adjacent street and restaurant.

The building is cantilevered at the back to accommodate staff parking beneath.

Here are some more details from the architects:

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The building site is situated at the end of a small street in the small village of Horebeke in the Flemish Ardennes, next to a restaurant. The view from the site is splendid: the landscape slopes slowly and offers an overview to an untouched agricultural area spread over two kilometers.

This kind of impressive landscapes asks for discrete admiration, just like the design assignment itself.

A notary must be a building that establishes itself in a neutral way and it should be accessible for each type of visitor.

We believe building in a landscape like this asks for the same kind of neutrality.

This was translated in a rough brick volume which is semi-closed to the street side and the restaurant.

The entrance to the building is marked by a white volume made of steel plates.

Walking through this white volume, the visitor enters a corridor looking out over a patio on the right side.

On the left side the corridor bends to the waiting room which opens cone-shaped to the landscape.

The kitchen and the offices open in a similar way to the outside. The peaceful landscape is framed through the windows like colourful paintings in the white interior.

The back of the building cantilevers over the sloping terrain. The staff can park under the building and the cars form no visual obstruction from within the building.

Click above for larger image

location: Horebeke, Belgium
construction: 2009
architect: atelier vens vanbelle

blogged by: Jake Shea

Here are some images of the pieces created by the winners of this year’s W Hotels Designers of the Future awards rAndom International, Beta Tank, Graham Hudson, and Zigelbaum & Coelho. The pieces were presented at Design Miami/Basel in Switzerland last week.

The designers were asked to create installations that encouraged participation. Zigelbaum & Coelho’s installation (above and top) was composed of 220 touch-sensitive magnetic lights placed on a wall in dark room. They started the day neatly packed into a square formation, but visitors were encouraged to move them to create their own patterns.

London-based designers Stuart Wood, Flo Ortkrass and Hannes Koch of rAndom International, created an installation (above) composed of movement-sensitive LED’s that danced in response to approaching viewers.

German designers Michele Gauler and Eyal Burstein of Beta Tank are based in London and Berlin. They designed the table above, which combines a steel frame and wooden pyramids.  These parts were machine-made and handmade respectively, meaning they were shipped to the site separately and subject to different shipping laws.

London designer, sculptor and architect Graham Hudson’s installation (above) was a temporary construction forming a transportable bar and DJ booth.

Above: installation by rAndom International

Here are details from Design Miami/Basel:

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DESIGN MIAMI/ BASEL PARTNERS WITH W HOTELS AND PRESENTS THE WINNERS OF THE 2010 W HOTELS DESIGNERS OF THE FUTURE AWARD

Since its inception, Design Miami/ Basel has guided its Designers of the Future Award toward the recognition of designers working in innovative ways – whether new materials, new processes, or new approaches. The goal of the Award, launched in 2006, is to offer the best representatives of the next generation of design creatives the opportunity to present newly commissioned work to a powerful audience of collectors, dealers and journalists, drawing attention to design practices that exemplify new directions for the future of the field.

Above: installation by rAndom International

This year, Design Miami/ Basel is pleased to announce its new partnership with W Hotels in presenting the 2010 W Hotels Designers of the Future Award. This alliance will allow Design Miami/ Basel to expand the benefits that the award brings to the winners, including the chance for the commissioned projects to have a life after the fair through practical applications within W’s sites around the world.

Above: installation by rAndom International

The 2010 W Hotels Designers of the Future Awards winners are:

* Beta Tank
* Graham Hudson
* rAndom International
* Zigelbaum & Coelho

Above: installation by rAndom International

These four winners were chosen by a selection committee comprising of Ambra Medda, Director, and Wava Carpenter, Associate Director, Design Miami/; Mike Tiedy, SVP, Global Brand Design & Innovation, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.; and Marcus Fairs, Editor-in-Chief, Dezeen.com.

“Innovation is at the core of W’s design philosophy,” says Mike Tiedy. “The work of these four winners represents exactly the type of forward-thinking design that W Hotels seeks to bring to its new and existing hotels all around the globe.”

Above: installation by Beta Tank

“W Hotels has been a design led brand and an innovator in its category from the very beginning,” says Eva Ziegler, Global Brand Leader, W Hotels Worldwide. “We are thrilled to be able to partner with Design Miami/Basel and be involved in recognizing the cutting-edge works of these upcoming and emerging young talents and look forward to showcasing their work to a global audience at our hotels.”

While the Designers of the Future Award has always featured unique and ground- breaking design work embodying the most progressive attitudes of each year, this year’s award pushes the drive towards experimentation further than ever. Exploring design work created at the very edges of the discipline, the 2010 W Hotels Designers of the Future Award will look beyond pure product and furniture design to embrace conceptually and technologically vanguard work that bridges multiple areas of practice including art, sociology, and science.

Above: installation by Beta Tank

“This year, we wanted to emphasize recent advancements in novel ‘design thinking’ that involve rich intersections between a variety of creative fields while exploring modes of design work that are particularly interactive” comments Design Miami/ Associate Director Wava Carpenter. She adds, “The common thread shared by the four diverse award winners consists of experiential and cross-disciplinary approaches that prompt visitors to participate and re-think the definitions of design practice.”

”I think this year’s award is particularly exciting because, through the resources of W Hotels, we’re able to provide the designers with the opportunity to create work with a practical/commercial application, but at the same time we’re commissioning designers whose work is especially conceptual.” Says Ambra. She adds, “I’m so proud to see that Design Miami/ has found a new way to present itself as a platform that encourages new collaborations and intersections of culture and commerce.”

Above: installation by Beta Tank

Berlin-based studio Beta Tank exemplifies the “design-for-debate” strand of contemporary design practice. For their commissioned project in Basel, Beta Tank will tackle the complex debate over the differences between art and design. The duo will harness aspects of international tax and shipping laws to question and reveal some of the arbitrary assumptions underlying the policies of the legal bureaucratic entities that regulate cultural production. The studio will create a series of ‘blended’ objects – partly hand-made, partly machine-made – that will be delivered to the fair in separate shipments, incurring different customs charges along the way. “This project is a reflection of how we work simultaneously in the realms of the theoretical and the practical,” states Beta Tank’s Eyal Burstein. “We want to understand how true innovation and creativity, that which crosses boundaries and moves into the unknown, can be actively pursued and matched within existing categories and assumptions about business practices and results.”

Above: installation by Beta Tank

Although he comes from the art world, Graham Hudson is planning to create the most practical project for his award commission. Hudson has taken up a challenge posed by W Hotels to create a modular bar/DJ booth that can be installed temporarily at sites around the world – a sort of ‘party to go.’ Hudson jumped at this opportunity because he has a great interest in the demise of the 1990’s club

scene in London, and sees this project as a way to memorialize a pre-internet, socially-dynamic era. “I’m not a designer, but I use a lot of raw and ready-made materials in public spaces, so there’s a lot of crossover; design and architecture is very much part of my work’s language, so it’s great that this side has been acknowledged – and a nice reminder of design’s non-fixed boundaries…” says British artist, Graham Hudson, referring to his selection for the Designers of the Future Award. Hudson’s work has taken many forms but consistently demonstrates how today’s creatives are forging new paths through site-specific installations meant to promote social interaction and playful engagement with repurposed materials.

Above: installation by Beta Tank

London and Berlin-based studio rAndom International represents a strand of creatives who employ cutting-edge technology and digital programming to develop interactive installations that combine the aims of both art and design. According to co-founder Hannes Koch, “Our work has a function: to generate a response.” For Design Miami/ Basel, rAndom International will create a new installation composed of lights that have been programmed to “dance” in response to the visitor’s body movements. Koch adds, “We are curious about the behavior of objects and want to reveal the hidden beauty and poetry in technology.”

For Design Miami/ Basel, Zigelbaum & Coelho will create “Six-Forty by Four- Eighty,” an interactive installation of thousands of graspable, luminescent pixels controlled by remote light brushes. The project blurs the boundaries between the digital and the physical while presenting a new solution for controllable, ambient lighting for interior spaces. W Hotels sees a fit between this project and the brand’s ‘Living Room’ approach to lobby areas, in which people are encouraged to hang out, socialize and enjoy their surroundings. “Primed by the biases of our visual culture, the pixel has ascended as the digital realm’s primary ambassador, but it has been a deceitful emissary,” says Jaime Zigelbaum. “By transposing the pixel from the confines of the screen and into the physical world, focus is drawn to the materiality of computation itself, and new forms for design emerge from the exposed spaces between media.” Marcelo Coelho adds, “Our participation means that we, the bastard children of art, design, engineering, and human-computer interaction, are invited into the family home. And just in time to get to work. Computational material is new again.”

Above: installation by Beta Tank

Beta Tank

Beta Tank is a design practice based in Berlin and London, founded by Michele Gauler and Eyal Burstein to take on large, complex social and technological issues and translate them into easily understood objects and services. Their projects develop from a deep interest in how humans adapt to progress in their everyday lives. While Beta Tank’s designs may seem fantastic or magical they are always based on available technologies and address timeless human behaviours and needs. Michele Gauler studied Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction and worked for IBM with their user experience team before moving to London for an MA in Design Interaction at the Royal College of Art. Eyal Burstein studied graphic

design at the London College of Printing, then Design Interaction at the Royal College of Art.

Above: installation by Graham Hudson

Graham Hudson

Graham Hudson (b.1977) received an MFA from Royal College of Art, London in 2002 and lives and works in London. Hudson’s work operates across sculpture, architecture and design, producing both objects and installations in a variety of media. Recent solo exhibitions include ZINGERpresents, Amsterdam (2010) and Montior, Rome (2009). Recent group exhibitions include Points and Lines, LMCC Sculpture Park, New York (2009), Frieze Sculpture Park, London (2009), Enzo Mari’s Autoprogettazione Project, Architectural Association, London (2009) and projects at the Baltic, Newcastle, MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, and Camden Arts Centre London. Commissions have included Comme des Garcons, Dover Street Market, London, Comme Des Garcons, Aoyama, Tokyo, and Workshop Workshop at Design Miami/ 09. Forthcoming exhibitions include ‘Newspeak’ Saatchi Gallery, London, Sculpture Roof, CRISP, London, and a solo exhibition at ArtHouse, Texas in 2011.

Above: installation by Graham Hudson

rAndom International

After meeting at the Royal College of Art in 2002, Stuart Wood, Flo Ortkrass and Hannes Koch founded the London-based collective rAndom International with a vision to create engaging and experimental art and design projects. Working within the frontiers of innovation across science, art and design, rAndom International has developed a series of increasingly experimental installations that aim to re- interpret the ‘cold’ nature of digital-based work by providing the viewer with the opportunity to have a more hands-on and aesthetic experience with technology.

Above: installation by Graham Hudson

Zigelbaum & Coelho

Zigelbaum & Coelho is a post-industrial design studio founded by Jamie Zigelbaum and Marcelo Coelho. Operating at the intersection of design, technology, science, and art, their work utilises physical, computational, and cultural materials in the service of creating new, but fundamentally human, experiences. Jamie and Marcelo began collaborating while students at the MIT Media Lab. They have lectured, published and exhibited internationally; taught classes on next generation interface design and fabrication techniques at MIT; and organised international workshops and conferences in the fields of transitive materials, reality-based interaction, and tangible interfaces.

Above: installation by Zigelbaum & Coelho

Jamie’s multidisciplinary work straddles design, human-computer interaction, media theory and cognitive science. Marcelo is an inventor of paper computers, shape-changing composites, interactive garments and digital gastronomy. His multidisciplinary Transitive Materials workshops bring together artists, designers, scientists and researchers working at the shifting boundaries between people, materials and computers. Both based in the United States, they push bits, and occasionally atoms, between Los Angeles and Cambridge.

Above: installation by Zigelbaum & Coelho

blogged by: Jake Shea

This building for Tokyo by Japanese architects Geneto will be cloaked in steel mesh with ivy growing over it.

Called Ivy Building, the project comprises retail spaces on the ground floor, offices above, and studio and residential units at the top.

A staircase wrapping around the building and linking all floors will be used as a public gallery , and the movement of those within will be visible through the mesh and plants.

More about Geneto on Dezeen:

DG House (February 2010)
Tanada piece gallery (December 2009)
Power Plant (February 2009)

Here’s some more information from the architects:

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IVY building

The Ivy building is a complex, planned to build in a medium to high rise area in Tokyo. It is a small scale building, but we were required different kinds of program on every floor.

Retail on the first floor, Office on the second to fourth floor and atelier-cum-residence on the fifth to sixth floor.

Usually office buildings and retail stores seek efficiency, so maximum floorage and ground connection is required. However, these kinds of buildings tend to isolate form the surrounding area and loose the sequence to the community.

We wanted to design a building that is open to community and at the same time satisfying in ground connection. Then we put some cultural program to commercial program.

The shape was determined by the legal restrain to derive the maximum volume.

When we gathered the stairway space in one area, it was compact in plan but when we thought of it as a volume, it was difficult to place.

Therefore we regarded the stairway as a linear space, and wrapped it around the building.

The stairway is able to be seen from outside the building, and people can see the motion of the ones going up the stairs.

Adding a gallery as a cultural program to the stairway, it turned into to a rich space.

The gallery is opened to the public, and the people can walk up to the higher floors. A sensuous and physical contact will occur between the people visiting and working there.

Additionally, the stairway has a function to connect the different programs on each floor, and that strengthens the building’s unity as a whole.

By adding another usage to the stairway space like this, the ground connection of the higher floors improved. We came up with an idea to cloak the building with steel mesh and cover it up with ivy to strengthen the unity of the building.

The façade created by the ivy has a presence in the surrounding area, but it doesn’t give a cool and commercial impression. Rather it gives a warm impression as if a large tree is standing there and people can stop by the building casually。

Click above for larger image

We wanted to create a new type of building by combining different kinds of program and propose a building that is opened to the society.

blogged by: Jake Shea

French architects Chartier-Carbasson have designed a football training centre in Amiens, France, with a sloping turf roof that merges with the adjacent field.

The centre’s ground floor houses changing rooms, a sports hall and medical facilities with accommodation and offices above.

The neighbouring River Selle and the surrounding greenery can be viewed from the building’s terraces and glazed training rooms.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

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The setting up of a training center has opened up a dialogue between domesticated nature, artificially represented by football pitches, and 
the untamed greenery on the banks of the River Selle.

The project is divided into two parts housed on two storeys.

On the first floor there is accommodation for the trainees, offices and training spaces.

On the ground floor there are dressing rooms, a medical unit, services, and spacious activity halls.

The siting of the project on its plot has led us to design a building with two facades, with the riverside elevation being used for inward-looking features.

The pitch-side elevation is an exercise in continuity: the cloak of turf is folded and curved to cover the building.

The ground floor walls are mainly glazed to ensure that the greenery outside is clearly visible from inside.

Amiens
2009
Architects : Chartier – Corbasson
Client : Amiens Métropole
Net surface : 1 900m² SHON
Budget : 3,2 M€ HT
Program: Accomodation for 45 players, dressing rooms, classrooms, training halls catering

blogged by:  Jake Shea

Statues at the this hotel by Singapore studio Ministry of Design have their heads in the clouds.

Called The Club, the monochrome Singapore hotel features undulating folds of fabric hanging from the ceiling and black illustrations of plants and trees.

The designers poke fun at a statue of Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, British statesman and founder of Singapore, by obscuring it’s head with the fabric.

Here are some more details from Ministry of Design:

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THE CLUB

Branding + Facade Design + Interior Architecture + Design + Collateral Design
1950 m2 Singapore. Built 2010

The Club is Ministry of Design’s latest high design boutique hotel offering in the uber chic Club Street conservation area with 22 distinctly unique rooms, a rooftop skybar with alfresco deck and a destination F&B venue with a tapas bar on the ground floor.

Conceptualizing The Club’s branding, MOD has orchestrated a unified design vision to all related collateral, signage and spatial environments. Targeted at the design and lifestyle savvy global nomad, The Club’s blend of sophisticated and comfortable design is at once distinctly local as it is cutting edge global.

Colin Seah, Design Director says, “Searching to ground the hotel in the context of Singapore as well as the historically rich conservation area of Club Street and Ann Siang Hill, we drew its inspiration from 2 sources.” “The first is Singapore’s colonial past, which we have made modern tongue-in-cheek references to through art installation like features such as an larger-than-life statue of Raffles with his head in the clouds as well as through some key furniture pieces and artifacts.

The second inspiration was drawn from the area’s popularity as a remittance center for turn of the century Chinese immigrants where hard earned money and wistful letters were sent back to the homeland. We have taken the memories of these exchanges and created features that hint of this legacy in the rooms of The Club, where the modern day nomad and the nomad of yesterday cross paths for a moment.” All rooms combine traditional colonial design inspired elements together with sleek modern detailing, attitude and creature comforts – creating a colonial chic aesthetic.

Unique layouts together with tailored artwork in each room make each of the 22 rooms distinct. MOD designed the artwork and famed local artist Wynlyn Tan implemented them in the hotel.  Guests have the option of checking in at the ground level lobby or at the panoramic roof top Sky Bar, overlooking the Club Street conservation area and CBD. F&B areas designed by Jane Yeo include Lobby Lounge, Tapas Bar, and 2 private function rooms.

ABOUT MINISTRY OF DESIGN
Question, Disturb & Redefine

Ministry of Design was created by Colin Seah to Question, Disturb & Redefine the spaces, forms & experiences that surround us and give meaning to our world.

An integrated spatial-design practice, MOD’s explorations are created amidst a democratic ‘studio-like’ atmosphere and progress seamlessly between form, site, object and space. We love to question where the inherent potential in contemporary design lies, and then to disturb the ways they are created or perceived – redefining the world around us in relevant and innovative ways, project by project!

This, we declare, is real change, not change for the sake of novelty.

Fortified with these aspirations, we begin each distinct project anew by seeking to do 2 things – to draw deeply from the context surrounding each project, but also to dream freely so that we might transcend mere reality and convention. Each MOD project endeavours to be delightfully surprising but yet relevant, distinctly local but still globally appealing.

The response to our ethos has been overwhelming and we’ve received critical acclaim with a multitude of international award wins and key media coverage – these include the RISING STAR OF ARCHITECTURE by the MONOCLE SINGAPORE SURVEY, GOLD KEY AWARD, the INTERNATIONAL DESIGN AWARDS and the PRESIDENT’S DESIGN AWARD twice over as well as feature appearances in WALLPAPER, FRAME and SURFACE.

True to our multi-disciplinary profile, we’ve also won the Grand Prize in SAPORITI ITALIA’S design competition, and Luxury Tower was manufactured for display at the prestigious Milan Design Week 2010.

MOD’s integrated spatial design approach has resulted in wide-ranging local and foreign projects such as the NEW MAJESTIC HOTEL, SHO-U RESTAURANT, ASHLEY ISHAM BOUTIQUE, SOHOCHINA SANLITUN CONDOMUNIUMS, BBH OFFICE IN A WAREHOUSE, HOLLAND PARK RESIDENCE, FACE TO FACE, THE CLUB BOUTIQUE HOTEL, THE RACE CLUB, HYATT HOTEL SEOUL & being a finalist in the SINGAPORE PAVILION WORLD EXPO 2010 SHANGHAI.

Visiting address: 28 Ann Siang Road
Postal code: Singapore 069708
Total floor area (m2): 1950
Client: Harry’s Hospitality Pte Ltd
Facilities: 22 distinctly unique rooms 1 rooftop Skybar with alfresco deck for check in, breakfast & drinks 1 destination F&B venue & 1 tapas bar Private Events
Duration of construction: 6 months
Opening: May 2010

blogged by: Jake Shea

Architects SOMAA of Stuttgart have collaborated with Guido Dongus to complete a canteen between two schools in Leonberg, Germany.

Called Mensa Leonberg, the new structure connects three existing buildings on the site.

The undulating facade features narrow alternating vertical strips of columns and full-height windows.

Asphalt flooring surrounding the building continues to the interior.

Here’s some more information from SOMAA:

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Mensa Leonberg

SOMAA. and collaborator Guido Dongus, would like to announce the completion of the new Mensa in Leonberg, Germany.

The new Mensa Leonberg is a shared cafeteria between two neighboring schools in downtown Leonberg. The building is situated between the street and three existing buildings and consists of three circular volumes fusing together to become one undulating form. This configuration separates itself from the existing, arbitrary urban plan and defines the space in between the existing structures. This creates a cohesive link between the two schools while also designating itself as a central meeting place.

The building creates several interior and exterior zones that are used to fulfill the various social needs of the two schools. These interior and exterior zones converge and blur the division between outside and inside. This is evident when one looks at the materials used for the flooring. The dark asphalt surrounding the building continues into the interior through the entry and, thus, combines the external and internal circulation spaces.

The internal circulation contains the main entrance, the dining counter and queue, and allows for continuous movement between the three core functional spaces. Within these core spaces are two areas for dining and meeting, and a third space for food preparation and other necessary services. By joining the core spaces in this way, the total area of the building is minimized, but allows for a flexible use of space and a generous area for circulation.

The special zones created by the internal functions are also reflected in the interior materials. On the ceiling, black bands mimic the circular forms created by the building shape. Within these black bands, small, cylindrical, aluminum tubes of differing circumferences were used to create a drop ceiling that disguises the artificial lighting above.

Moveable partitions also follow the circular forms within and allow the two dining areas to be closed. This further clarifies the function of each zone and its relation to the overall building shape.

On the exterior, the façade consists of a system of open and closed floor to ceiling panels paired with exterior wooden supports. Here the rhythm of the vertical columns reinforces the undulating form of the building and the open glass façade creates a visual connection to the outdoors.

Click for larger image

The shape and orientation of the building was designed to maximize solar gain and for this reason the southern and eastern sides of the building consist of the main dining areas and have an almost entirely open façade.

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The generous amount of natural light that is created by the open façade allows for the relatively small use of artificial lighting and contributes to making the space feel open.

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Natural ventilation was also incorporated into the façade and is used in combination with a mechanic ventilation system. By optimizing the relation between façade area to ground surface, loss of temperature is also minimized.

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On the western end of the building, the façade is closed surrounding the service core, and skylights are used to provide natural light for work spaces. By using a regular façade in this way, the elements needed for construction could be simplified and a large amount of the construction could be industrially prefabricated

Click for larger image

The simplicity of the building form is then tectonically expressed with in the construction and overall design. By uniting these elements, the building gains clarity and functionality that was beneficial in linking the two schools.

blogged by: Jake Shea

London studio Amenity Space have squeezed this new residence between two terraced houses in Stoke Newington, London.

The ground floor of the new four-storey house at 76A Newington Green Road features full-height glass doors leading from the kitchen to a small yard in front of the property.

A red section of the upper facade references the buses that pass constantly and is covered in horizontal wooden batons.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

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76A Newington Green Road is an infill building that will unite 2 period terraces on a narrow site in North London.

The project is the result of a genuine social and sustainable approach by the client and design team.

The site is being developed as a self build project by Fiona Sail, a long standing tenant of Stadium Housing Association.

Fiona and her family had lived in the neighbouring property for 15 years but faced relocation, following a decision by the landlord to sell off a portion of their housing stock at the start of 2009.

Fiona saw potential to develop a building on the 4.8m wide yard between the terraces, and appointed architects Amenity Space to design a building that would fit harmoniously on the site and be a highly sustainable development.

The architects won planning permission in May 2009.

The design subtly references the proportions, materiality and texture of the neighbouring buildings and number 73 bus, whilst maximising the building footprint.

During the planning process, it was former Urban Design Officer at Islington Council remarked it was ‘the best design for an infill development in the borough’.

The Sail family will move into the new building once the project is completed in early 2010.

blogged by: Jake Shea