Jun 3, 2011

University of Naples Metro Station by Karim Rashid

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New York designer Karim Rashid has renovated the University of Naples subway station in Naples, Italy.

Commuters pass between huge columns with the profiles of faces towards a shifting lenticular wall of graphic patterns.

Sculptures and graphic artworks line the escalators, leading to platforms with backlit patterns on the walls.

More about Karim Rashid on Dezeen »

The information below is from Karim Rashid:

The University of Naples subway station is highly trafficked by a multi-cultural, academic community of thousands of passengers a day.

A creative concept that communicates and embodies knowledge in the new digital age, language in the shrinking global landscape, innovation and mobility in this third technological revolution.

Naples is no longer a historic southern city of Italy but instead now is an integral intellectual information haven that extends itself throughout the rest of the world.

This is the changing Italy and the station is a metaphor of this new wired global condition. It integrates the station with its surroundings, as well as provides a platform for innovative, cutting-edge design strategy.

We utilize the descension from the piazza to the subway platforms to represent a metaphorical shift from the conscious brain to the spiritual mind. Experiencing this journey, the commuter is able to define one’s own experience by interpreting the individual shift from a busy “brain state” to a focused “mind state”.

Entering into the station from the piazza to the subway station, the visitor will walk though a space clad with tiles, each one with is printed with new words created in this last century. Once the visitor arrives in the station lobby, he/she is impacted by the soft nature of the space, the striking palette of colors and patterns.

Along the back wall of the station lobby level, lenticular iconography changing colors and perspective provides an interesting siteline as commuters proceed to the platforms below. Intersecting the space between the heads profile benches (metaphorically intersecting the dialogue) is an abstracted, SYNPOSIS sculpture reflecting the nodes of the brain and the synapses which occur within.

When descending to the subway platforms via escalator, a visitor experiences a transition from the busy piazza to a more intimate, focused environment. It is here where we display various artworks and other graphic art as a focal point. These abstract images invoke the user to shape the environment according to his/her own creative interpretations.

Rolling LED programming situated behind frosted glass displays universally recognized words, referencing knowledge and the multicultural university setting.

Descending and ascending the stairwells on each respective platform, the steps have abstracted portraits of Dante and Beatrice. Once the commuter arrives at the end of the escalator, transformational digital art follows he/she to the platform stairways. The accent colors, lime and pink, indicates the direction and guide visitors through the descent to the final destination.

Airframe surfaces speak about the beauty of our airframe voxels of the flux and ever dynamic multidimensional information and data age (infostethiks).

The platform level of the subway station is where the people spend the most static time. One’s experience while waiting for the subway is enhanced by the tranquil, imaginative environment of the “mindstate”. Seating is provided in the form of landscape forms.

The back wall of the subway platform is a backlit artwork, providing a continuous soft glow in the space. Across the platform, digital artwork creates an entertaining distraction. In addition to related iconography, the piece could include a shadow of an oncoming train, etc. to signify a train’s arrival.

A subway station is a temporal, transitional space, yet the commuter is contained for a short period of time before continuing his/her journey.

As he/she transitions from one environment to another, he/she is most likely reviewing the day’s previous events, or preparing for the next task. Our concept focuses on the commuter experience within the train station, and how the surrounding environment can serve as a respite in a day’s schedule.

Globalove, Karim Rashid

PROJECT TEAM: KARIM RASHID, CAMILA TARIKI, DENNIS ASKINS.

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Monopoly lost: Atlantic City's rise and fall

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WayneParryAC.

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wonder what happen with Old NYC subway cars? (WOW...now bin laden has new office)

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Retired NYC subway cars sleep with the fishes

By Liz Goodwin

Intrepid New York Times transit reporter Michael Grynbaum highlights a beautiful photo series showing the watery end of retired New York City subway cars, which are dramatically dropped into the ocean to become artificial reefs for sea creatures.

The city decided 10 years ago to donate the old cars so that mussels, barnacles, and even some sharks could glom on and weave in and out of the structures off the Eastern seaboard. Photographer Stephen Mallon captured these images of ocean-bound cars from 2008-2010 that all ended up off the coast of Virginia, Delaware and Maryland.

Sadly, Grynbaum reports that newer cars have too much plastic to be disposed of in this environmentally friendly (and cheaper) way, so the city is looking for a new fate for its elderly trains. Check out the entire series here.

(Photos: Stephen Mallon/Works Artists/Frontroom Gallery)

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Jun 2, 2011

SFMOMA Expansion by Snøhetta

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SFMOMA Expansion by Snøhetta

June 2nd, 2011

Norwegian architects Snøhetta have unveiled their design for an extension to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), which will double the gallery’s exhibition and education spaces.
SFMOMA Expansion by Snohetta

A glass-fronted gallery along Howard Street will create a new entrance to the museum on a part of the site currently occupied by a fire station.
SFMOMA Expansion by Snohetta

From here a five metre-wide pathway will lead up a set of stairs and across a public square towards Natoma Street.
SFMOMA Expansion by Snohetta

The new buildings will be over 15 metres taller than the existing SFMOMA building, which was completed by architect Mario Botta in 1995.
SFMOMA Expansion by Snohetta

Read more about Snøhetta’s competition-winning entry in our earlier story on Dezeen Wire.
More stories about Snøhetta on Dezeen »
More stories about galleries on Dezeen »
Here are some more details from the press release:

SFMOMA unveils preliminary designs for its expansion
Expansion Will Double Exhibition and Education Space
Design Transforms SFMOMA and Neighbourhood
Opening New Routes of Public Circulation and Access
With New Entry and Pedestrian Promenade
May 25, 2011—The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) today unveiled the preliminary design for its expansion that will double the museum’s exhibition and education space while enhancing the visitor experience and more deeply weaving the museum into the fabric of the city. The new building will both transform the museum and enliven the city by opening up new routes of public circulation around the neighbourhood and into the museum. Completion is projected in 2016.
Developed by architectural firm Snøhetta in collaboration with SFMOMA and EHDD of San Francisco, the over 225,000-square-foot expansion will run contiguously along the back of the current building and extend from Howard to Minna streets, allowing for the seamless integration of the two structures. The new building will provide SFMOMA with a greater public profile and an openness that will welcome visitors and project the museum’s role as a catalyst for new ideas, a center for learning, and a place that provides great art experiences for Bay Area residents and visitors.
On its east side, the building will feature a sweeping façade and an entrance in an area that is currently hidden from public view and largely unused. This will be achieved through the creation of a mid-block, open-air, 18-foot-wide pedestrian promenade running from Howard Street through to Natoma Street that will open a new route of public circulation through the neighbourhood and bring Natoma Street, currently a dead end, to life. The public promenade will feature a series of stairs and landings terracing up to an entry court that extends from the new east entrance, providing additional public spaces.
The building also introduces a façade on Howard Street that will feature a large, street-level gallery enclosed in glass on three sides, providing views of both the art in the galleries and the new public spaces. At this time, the museum is also exploring the creation of a number of outdoor terraces, including one on top of its current building. The Snøhetta building will rise fifty feet higher than the Botta building, and its roofline will be sculpted to frame the skyline of the buildings beyond it to the east when viewed from Yerba Buena Gardens. The new entrance will be accessible from both Howard and Natoma streets and will align with the new Transbay Transit Center being built two blocks east of the museum. This entry will complement SFMOMA’s current Third Street entrance, which will be revitalised to enhance visitor flow and access.
On Howard Street, the glass-enclosed gallery and pedestrian promenade will be located on a site currently occupied by Fire House 1 and its neighbor at 670 Howard Street. SFMOMA is designing, financing, and constructing a new, replacement fire station on nearby Folsom Street, representing a gift to the city of more than $10 million, that will provide the Fire Department with a state-of-the-art facility that will enhance emergency response time.
The planning of the expansion continues as an intensive collaborative process of museum leadership, trustees, visitors, other stakeholders, and the design team. The design of the interior spaces and integration of the two buildings will be unveiled at the end of this year.
Says SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra, “This is a transformative design for the museum, the neighbourhood, and the city. The new resources we are creating for SFMOMA are a response to the incredible growth of our audiences over the past 15 years and increased public demand for the museum’s programming. The welcoming and luminous character of Snøhetta’s design and its embrace of the surrounding neighbourhood further SFMOMA’s role as a center for learning, interaction, and inspiration for the people of San Francisco and the region.”
“Our design for SFMOMA responds to the unique demands of this site, as well as the physical and urban terrain of San Francisco,” says Snøhetta principal architect Craig Dykers. “The scale of the building meets the museum’s mission, and our approach to the neighbourhood strengthens SFMOMA’s engagement with the city. Pedestrian routes will enliven the streets surrounding the museum and create a procession of stairs and platforms leading up to the new building, echoing the network of paths, stairways, and terracing that is a trademark of the city.”
SFMOMA has raised more than $250 million toward a projected $480 million campaign goal for the expansion, including $100 million for the museum’s endowment. The project also encompasses an expansion of the permanent collection, which forms the foundation of the museum’s programming. This past February, SFMOMA launched a multiyear campaign to further strengthen the collection, which has more than doubled in size to 27,000 works since the museum moved to its current home in 1995. In September 2009, the museum also announced that the Fisher family would share its renowned collection of contemporary art with the public at SFMOMA. The museum holds one of the foremost collections of contemporary art in the world and the leading collection of modern and contemporary art on the West Coast.
SFMOMA first announced plans to expand its building in April 2009, spurred by growth since it moved to Third Street in 1995. The move catalyzed incredible growth in the museum’s audiences, educational programs, exhibitions, and collections. Over the past 15 years, SFMOMA’s annual average attendance has more than tripled to some 700,000, membership has grown to 40,000. SFMOMA has also developed one of the strongest exhibition programs in the world, organising groundbreaking shows that travel internationally, including recent surveys of the work of Diane Arbus, Olafur Eliasson, Eva Hesse, Frida Kahlo, William Kentridge, Sol LeWitt, Richard Tuttle, and Jeff Wall.
Snøhetta on SFMOMA
In describing the design concept, Craig Dykers stated:
SFMOMA sparked the dramatic transformation of San Francisco’s South of Market district when it transformed a run-down neighborhood into a cultural anchor for the city in 1995. After 15 years on Third Street, SFMOMA is now further invigorating the city by opening up a place that has been out of sight and out of mind.
SFMOMA’s expansion will enliven the neighbourhood through a generous plan that frees connections between well-known surrounding streets and more hidden urban spaces. The building will encourage people to enjoy the intimate small streets as much as the heavily used thoroughfares of the district. The new building does not push tightly against its property lines; instead it creates new public spaces and pedestrian routes through the neighbourhood along with open views of the surrounding streetscape. By organising the complex configuration of the museum’s expansion site into a unified whole, the new SFMOMA will promote connections to portions of the city that are already becoming more publicly accessible with the construction of the new Transbay Transit Center. Having been a partner to the creation of the cultural hub around Yerba Buena Gardens, SFMOMA will now further enliven the entire neighbourhood as an urban destination.
Formally, the new SFMOMA is designed to engage with the skyline that surrounds it. Its sculptural identity is found in a formal language that embraces and invites the silhouettes of its neighbours to participate in the dialogue of the new urban identity of South of Market. SFMOMA’s new, low slung shape will create a horizon in the skyline that connects rather than segregates the different parts of the city that border it.

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Interesting Facts of the world from the last ONE MINUTE of your life!

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Interesting Facts of the world from the last ONE MINUTE of your life! I call this section – “During your first minute of reading this:”

During the first minute of your time reading this, an estimated 255 babies were born.
- During the same minute, an estimated 107 people died (almost 6% of the people who died in that minute, died of a fully preventable ailment – hunger). This is an overage of 147 people, increasing the global population by around 80 MILLION every year.
Over Population of the Earth
In just 1 minute: 141 MILLION email messages were sent, and 775,000 searches were completed on Google.com.
- Google has 200M searches per day
- There were 360 million internet users in 2000. This year, there are almost SEVEN BILLION
In just 1 minute: 43,000 TONS of Carbon dioxide (CO2) were emitted into the world, 56,674 barrels of oil were pumped from the earth (1 barrel equals 42 gallons)
- The 23 million residents of the US state of Texas emit more carbon dioxide than the entire population of sub-Saharan Africa, which is 720 million people.
  - Additional sources: Committee to Protect Journalists, The Inter-parliamentary Union, UNICEF
In just 1 minute: Over 10 MILLION cigarettes were smoked
- Every day, the average person inhales about 20,000 liters of air.
- Smoking deaths – Around 5.4 million deaths a year worldwide (1,205 per day US only)
In just 1 minute: $220M was spent on illegal drugs.
Population Overload
In just 1 minute: 10 people died as a result of water pollution (Water pollution accounts for the death of 14,000 per day) http://environment.about.com/od/environmentalevents/a/waterdayqa.htm
In just 1 minute: 34 people were diagnosed with cancer
- Over 12 million new cancer cases were diagnosed and 7.6 million cancer deaths (about 20,000 cancer deaths a day) occurred worldwide in 2007
In just 1 minute: 2 people died in a road accident
- An estimated 1.17 million deaths occur each year worldwide due to road accidents

How significant is this moment? Let me provide you with some incredible statistics:

The World is 4.55 billion years old.
In the year 10,000 B.C., there were only 5 million people on earth. By 8,000 B.C., this figure had risen to only 8 million.
Around the year 1900 there were 1.6 Billion people on the earth. NOW there is a total population of the world at just under 6.8 BILLION. In just over 100 years our population has QUADRUPLED. (Oddly enough, the current global population of chickens is about equal to the current number of people in the world.)
- TODAY ALONE, the population of the world will increase by over 200,000 people. Today, China will increase in population by over 24,000 people, and India by over 49,000 people. Russia is one of the few countries with a population that is actually DECREASING on a daily basis, by almost 2,000 people every day.
- Before the year 2050, India will surpass China as the largest country in the world, estimated to hit over 1.5 BILLION people. The population of India has almost TRIPLED from 1950 to 2000 (It is expected to increase by 50% in the next 40 years.)
  - Source: The World Factbook, 2008

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Jun 1, 2011

The Four (and Only) Reasons Women Cheat

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The Four (and Only) Reasons Women Cheat

Don't worry, guys, only half of them are pretty much your fault.

By Andrew Patterson

Woman in panties holding a condom behind her back next to a guy in bed

As told by "the other guy," aka Andrew Patterson.
I have the overwhelming urge to preface this with the fact that I have never cheated on any significant other I've had. Actually, I've never cheated on an insignificant other, nor any woman that had any right to think we were exclusive. I've also never been cheated on, to my knowledge. I have, however, spent more than a few nights being the "other guy," and I have learned a few things about women during these illicit trysts. It all comes from some of the worst pillow talk ever, but I have this overwhelming urge to share such insider information with the masses.
Barring the influence of Rohypnol or chloroform, or revenge for you cheating on her/treating her like shit, Lifetime Channel movie style (with fists and verbal abuse), there are only four reasons a woman will cheat. Yes, four. The details of each may be a bit different for each person, but overall, the reasoning for women looking outside any relationship falls into four general categories.
"What are they?" you ask? Well, I may have made a list just for you.
1. You aren't there enough.
Guy dressed in Call of Duty outfit at kitchen table alone

Guy dressed in Call of Duty outfit at kitchen table alone

It's not what you did, but how much of it you did instead of her.I know it's a dick thing to say, but some of my best wingmen have been asshole boyfriends. Often, you just aren't there nearly enough, and they are craving some attention. Even if you are around, the time you spend together isn't anything exciting. If you have said more than 4 times in a week that your plans can wait until you "finish this mission" in Call of Duty, you're already putting points on my scoreboard.
Sometimes, just a guy that's willing to devote a half hour of their attention just to her and what she has to say is enough to get you cuckolded. Hearing someone ask her about what matters to her, tell her that what she likes is interesting, and show a genuine interest in what she is passionate about can send her head reeling. A genuine conversation is by far a better way to flirt than some shitty line you saw in an indie movie. Usually, the "other guy" she's talking to has no idea she's in a relationship, and may not even be thinking about trying to hook up, just to hang out and enjoy the shindig. However, once it seems like an opportunity has arisen, well sir, you just lost your woman for the night.
2. You're there too much.
Guy bringing surprise flowers to his girlfriend

Guy bringing surprise flowers to his girlfriend

Even roses start to smell like poo-poo-poo.You're probably a sweet, caring guy. One of the few left in the world, actually. However, you didn't have a lot of deep relationships, so something as significant as what you have now makes you feel like you just found Wonka's last golden ticket.
You don't want to fuck this up, so you make sure she knows how much you appreciate her and like being around her. The unexpected flowers were sweet, the tight hugs made her feel warm and fuzzy, and the compliments made her blush.
For the first few weeks.
But shit, son, she just needs a little space. You don't have to share every goddamned meal with her, you don't have to go to every party she goes to, and sometimes she just wants to hang out with people that aren't you. Smothering her like she's some unwanted baby isn't going to keep her close. Actually, it'll make her go out and meet someone who won't do that.
It'll probably be some fairly sarcastic ass-hat chugging Iron City Light and claiming to be a better carpenter than Jesus, since Jesus had to beg for money, and this guy can actually find work. The twelve calls and texts will make her irritated, the case of St. Ides someone bought to share for people who are underage will make him seem more alluring, and congrats, she's not coming home tonight, and she turned her phone off so that she isn't reminded of what she is doing. Don't worry, she'll honestly feel guilty about it, but you can't change the past.
3. She's just a flat out whore.
Girl nip slip dancing at a club with a guy

Girl nip slip dancing at a club with a guy

She went behind your back, he went behind hers.I won't say this one isn't still partially your fault, but sometimes a woman is a filthy, filthy floozy. You should have known this, since she looked you in the eye the first time the two of you were ever intimate and told you to stick it in her butt.
Her sexual appetite and need for attention may spawn from a childhood eating disorder, or a lack of daddy's attention, or maybe she merely discovered she really loves dick. Regardless, you had the full knowledge and understanding that riding dudes and chugging baby gravy are two of her favorite pastimes. And you, who actually wants to focus on irrelevant shit like "classes" and "work" and "your future," never stopped to think about what she was doing the four nights of the week she wasn't banging you.
The answer is other people. This really shouldn't surprise you, since she was probably dating some other dude when you first hooked up with her. If you knew, then you have no right to be even remotely surprised. I mean, if you yourself were the "other guy" she cheated on someone else with, what is so special about you that makes you think it wouldn't happen again?
If you didn't know, then this may have blindsided you, but there were always signs. Nights she didn't answer your phone calls, times she wouldn't look you in the eye (she probably didn't want you to see Kyle's semen stains on her face), or maybe it was that day she came home smelling of Axe Body Spray and spermicidal lube. If she was that much of a hussy, and you ignored all these signs, then it probably isn't the first time she cheated, and if you think she'll change, then I'm sorry to be the one to say it, but it won't be the last time, either.
4. The relationship is already over.
Bored couple at a restaurant

She's got a case of wandering eye, and it's not a vision problem.It may not be official yet, but she at least knows it's not working, and never will. You may or may not have any idea you are about to be single, but whether you know it or not is irrelevant. It may take another month or five, but eventually, the end of your relationship will be official. Maybe you're stuck in a lease together and neither of you can afford to move out. Maybe she's still comfortable with you, but hasn't been in love with you for a while now. Either way, she's probably looking for greener pastures, or just embittered because her prime years were wasted on you and wants to know she's still got it.
The "other guy" really isn't wrecking a home, more just kicking down the tattered drywall that's left. More often than not, she isn't trying to hurt you; she's either just planning ahead or starting the transition to the single life early. Either that, or she feels it's easier to cheat and end the relationship on a sour note than to stay around and be trapped in an already broken relationship.
Out of the four, you should take this one the least personally. It is genuinely not your fault, assuming she hadn't voiced any opinions on why something was wrong, which you ignored (if you didn't try to work on what's wrong, then it's at least a bit your fault). There may have been signs that you missed, but overall it was unavoidable. Even if you knew the signs, the two of you were unsalvageable. It's over, and you can go your separate ways. The "other guy" is really just expediting the inevitable, for which you should thank him. Now you don't have to buy her any more shit to get her to give you that half-hearted smile.

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How to Compare Women to Cars

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The Automotive Woman Theory

By Aaron Castellan

I had an intriguing conversation with a friend of mine the other night. We were just going back and forth quoting Sports Night and I made the comment that Jeremy (played by Joshua Malina) was way out of his league dating Natalie. Not only that, but when he and Natalie break up he dates a freaking porn star who....wait for it.....LIKES SPORTS. Jeremy is a computer, math guy who also has a love for sports. He's not a terribly good-looking guy and tends to be a little spazzy. So, I feel vindicated when I say that he was out of his league.
I also happened to make mention of the fact that a porn star who loves sports would be a pretty sought after commodity. (Not necessarily a porn star, but someone who obviously enjoys sex. The combination of a woman who loves sports and sex is...really what every guy looks for.) My friend, Kristin, then made the comment that I was wrong. "Girls who like sports aren't appreciated at all!" (She's a girl who likes sports.) That got me to thinking....
What could that be compared to? How can you accurately describe what kind of boost a girl gets for liking sports?
I came back with, "A girl who likes sports is really just like a nice accessory to a car. Say you buy a car and they throw in some really awesome bonus for nothing. The car is still the same, but you've got some rims now for free." My buddy Colin and I then polished up the theory to state the following:
"A girl who likes sports is like buying a car with 18" alloy wheels, sunroof, spoiler, heated leather seats, EVERYTHING. However, if the car you're buying is a Geo Metro, it's still a Geo Metro and you're still pretty freakin' lame."
Listen, one quality doesn't make or break a woman. Looks aren't everything, if only because no one thing is everything. A lot goes into making a woman desirable. She could have the rare ability to talk shit with the guys and not miss a beat (always a fan favorite). She could have an unbelievable smile. She could be the funniest person you've ever met in your life. However, none of these things on their own are enough to transform a Geo Metro into a Mercedes SLK 500.
The bottom line is, liking sports is a great thing, but it's not a deal breaker. A woman loving baseball is like getting a top of the line model. It's the E-series with all the fancy stuff that makes a 40 thousand dollar car a 60 thousand dollar car. However, the car is still the same. Little has changed other than a few fancy things that are awesome to play around with, but at the end of the day there isn't a whole lot about them that really makes the car that much better. Remember the Ecto-1? That thing was a piece of garbage. Even when the Ghostbusters put all that Egon technology on it, it still was what it was: a piece of crap.
This theory has specific categories for a different sort of girl and compares them to a specific car. Obviously, the system is not without its flaws. There are plenty of women who break the mold. They simply cannot be categorized. However, since cars are so customizable these days, it takes a lot of that problem out of the equation. First we have to begin with the type of car. We'll go from bottom to top.

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The Automotive Woman Theory

By Aaron Castellan

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Fabric Facade Studio Apartment by CC-Studio, Studio TX and Rob Veening

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Fabric Facade Studio Apartment by cc-studio, studio TX and Rob Veening

Strips of perforated fabric are tacked onto the facades of this house near Amsterdam by Dutch architects CC-Studio andStudio TX.

Fabric Facade by cc-studio, studiotx and Rob Veening

The design for Fabric Facade Studio Apartment was developed in collaboration with client and artist Rob Veening.

Each strip is attached to the elevation along one edge only, allowing the fabric to flap in the wind.

The pieces were cut from rolls of teflon, a coated fibreglass material normally used for conveyor belts in food factories.

A central atrium with a skylight above provides natural light for an artists studio and exhibition space on the ground floor of the building.

The two uppers storeys contain the residential spaces, including a living room with a 4.5m high ceiling.

Photography is by John Lewis Marshall.

Here are some more details from the architects:

Fabric Façade: Studio Apartment Rob Veening

Description

The house is built on one of the 350 plots designated for construction by private builders (not very common in the Netherlands), an initiative of Alderman Adri Duivesteijn, in the Homerus quarter in Almere (near Amsterdam in the Netherlands). The “Herenhuis” plots, where extra high ceiling clearance (3.5 m) was required at the ground floor level, are suitable for both residential and work functions.

The assignment was to achieve a spacious home with downstairs a studio artist / exhibition space and on the top floors housing. The principal, Rob Veening, had after having lived in Canada for many years, expressed the wish that the house should not be minimally seized and narrow (like many Dutch residences) but spacious, open and giving one a sense of freedom of movement. A dream assignment for space loving designers, with the added challenge of a very limited budget.

To save costs and to make the construction of such a large volume financially viable, a number, some innovative, measures were taken.

The house (hull) was made wind and watertight by the contractor Postma after which the client finished it himself: stairs, insulation, interior finishes, interior walls, doors, equipment and installation of the external cladding. Contractor Postma’s advantage is that in addition to their own timber structure workshop they also produce their own windows and door frames. This eliminates contractors traditional 10% surcharge cost over these items. It also gave a chance to make very large window frames and doors (2.7m high) which could be realized without any fuss.

One of the most expensive items in a building budget is the facade which is usually the first item that is reduced in ambition. This always has serious consequence for the architectural image. From there came the radical proposal.

The municipality of Almere has C2C in high esteem and even drafted its “Almere Principles”! This course offered a chance to see how much they really meant it and how much liberty they were willing to give private clients. From this, cc studio developed the idea to try to produce the facade from residual waste, using their contacts with the tent industry. The extremely durable, non-combustible, residual material comes from rolls of PTFE (Teflon) coated fiberglass fabric, used in the industrial manufacture of conveyors belts for the food industry. This special material was completely sponsored by Verseidag-Indutex from Krefeld, Germany. The 5 m long rolls (about 1200m2 gross) were cut by the principal and cc-studio into strips and placed as overlapping shingles and tacked on a backing of osb panels. The flexible material moves with wind, creating a lively image. In the sidewall up to a height of 7 meters no pattern is applied due to possible future building that must, by regulation, build up to a minimum height of 7 meters.

Through integrated design it was also possible to omit the traditional steel portal for stability. The entire stability comes from stapled Fermacell (fiberboard) plates in the front, rear and side facades.

To ensure the internal spatial relationship vides and split-levels were used. The artist’s studio downstairs is, at the side of the garden façade, visually connected with the living room on the first floor trough a vide. The studio therefore has an extra window giving it more light deep into the studio.

In the middle of the building volume a central vide with at the top a skylight was carved out, visually connecting all the upper floors. A continuous internal space is the result which has a very pleasant light quality and orientation. Additional advantage is that the study / TV room, top level street side, does not need windows nor received them to save costs. Due to the split-level in the front part of the living room the ceiling height reaches 4.5 m giving it a real mansion (“herenhuis”) quality. The dimensions of the wooden doors 3.5 m wide x 2.7 m height contributes also to this sense of space. But due to all those large measurements the scale of the building is quite difficult to read and can only be measured by comparing it with the traditional sizes of the neighboring house.

Finally, the house has a lower energy requirement than demanded by law (A EPC required then was 0.8, achieved 0.6) and also features a number of other sustainability features which made it eligible for “Green” financing (a lower interest rate for sustainable building).

It was a special, very nice and close collaboration between client and designers that made the best use of the, sometimes somewhat unconventional, opportunities.

design: cc-studio & studiotx in collaboration with R. Veening
structural engineer: cc-studio
building physics consultant: bureau Kent
contractor & frame manufacturer: bouwbedrijf Postma
facade material: Verseidag-Indutex
hull completion: september 2010
interior completion: juni 2011
plot size: 168 m²
plot price: € 48.000,-
gross floor area: 190m2 floor + 30m2 vides + 31m2 roof terras
gross volume: 1030m3
height: 13,5m
construction costs hull: € 170.000,- incl. VAT
finishing and installations: ± € 80.000,- incl. VAT
building system: timber frame structure on a concrete foundation and concrete hollow core slab ground floor

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