Daniel Ha: Looking Out Week 5

Hawaii Preparatory Academy Energy Laboratory in Kamuela (on the Big Island), Hawaii
Architect: Flansburgh Architects

     This building is a zero-net-energy, LEED Platinum, and Living Building Challenge certified. It generates all of it's power via solar and wind collection. And of all energy collected, only 8% is used by the building (the rest is directed to the main campus). It also collects its own drinking water (filtered from waste water and heated by the previously mentioned energy). And on top of all of that, the building is naturally ventilated and has a radiant cooling system (because unlike Pittsburgh, Hawaii don't have any need for heaters or fire places or any of that nonsense to keep warm).

Liz Dolinar: Looking Out Week 5

This is the Serpentine Gallery pavilion by Frank Gehry. Constructed in 2008, it was a temporary summer pavilion that was designed as an amphitheater of sorts on the grounds of the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens (London). The pavilion provides shelter from the elements and terraced seating for visitors. The large, heavy-timber structure was designed as an "urban street" connecting the public park to the gallery building (plus, even though it's Frank Gehry, it's still pretty cool).

Looking Out Week 5 - Charmaine Y

This is the Perez Cruz Winery by Chilean architect Jose Cruz Ovalle, he received the "Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Award" for his innovative use of wood in his buildings and the interior atmosphere it creates.  Perez describes his use of wood and states that "The material shows its splendour from the very day a column rises up or a beam is put in place. One can no longer differentiate between the structural work and the finishing. We can inhabit the immediacy of the structures and the contact with the surfaces, be they bent or straight, flat or warped.”  The laminated bent wood creates a wine barrel-like shape on both the exterior and interior, making the overall feeling of the building be very natural, warm.

Looking Out Week 5: Gary Li

This project done by A1 architects is for all you tea lovers out there. This space used for drinking tea offers a pleasant experience white sipping on tea. It separates the space into a circulation element as well as a tea drinking element. The serenity and the feeling of "drinking within nature" just makes this space successful. 

Alyssa Hamilton: Looking Out Week 5

This guy is the essence of a hoarder but in the best way. He takes the most warped beams, thrown out toilets, etc. and makes awesome homes out of it. He literally goes dumpster diving for homes. He primarily works with wood, both natural (twigs) and thrown out scraps. So cool. Watch the Ted Talk. You'll enjoy it. He's really funny too.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_phillips_creative_houses_from_reclaimed_stuff.html

Alyssa Hamilton: Looking Out Week 4

Tell me you don't want to hang out here! So cool. The is a New Zealand tree house restaurant by Pacific Environments Architects.

Alyssa Hamilton: Looking Out Week 3

So this guy is crazy. He takes old encyclopedias and with some surgical tools spend hours making awesome art. Not architecture but pretty damn impressive.

Quresh Tyebji: Looking Out Week 5

The Vennesla Library and Culture House by Norwegian architects Helen & Hard uses wood to a whole new level. Its sleek exterior separates wood out into ribs for elegant light entry. The most interesting and amazing thing about it is the integration of the interior wood structure with the functionality of the library as the wood swoops and forms seats/reading beds as well as book shelves (which reminds me very much of what we are doing with the current studio project – furniture integration). Lastly, the way its innovative exterior falls into the context of the neighboring buildings at the city square truly fulfil the client’s original intent to mark the library as the city’s cultural center.

Quresh Tyebji: Looking Out Week 4

The Forest Sauna at Gävlebukten by Meter Arkitektur is a simple piece of work that uses wood beams in simple and beautiful ways. The architect incorporates other materials through the spatial definition defined by the wood. This modern form of architecture embeds the structure beautifully and simply with the given site.

Danielle Lehmann: Looking Out Week 5

  This is the WISA Wooden Design Hotel by Pieta-Linda Auttila in Helsinki, Finland.
  You can tell it's made in Finland because, like Aalto's extravagant wood designs, this building is almost entirely made of wood.
  And don't let the name of "Hotel" make you think that it can accommodate more than two families at a time because it doesn't. It's only for a few people at a time.
  Besides its deforesting nature, its design is smooth and balanced. There is an interesting opposition between a solid, square volume at either end and a curving, void-like space in the middle. In the solid volume, there is a huge picture window (with plywood walls) that directs one singular view where in the other end of the hotel, there are hundreds of small slit views. The sun trickles in between the many openings within each piece of wood, creating beautiful shadows on the interior. The floor becomes furniture which becomes the walls. It's a magical dance of material and immaterial.
  I found a quote from the architect which says: “By bending the block I forced the slats into a new form that contrasts with the original arrangement. That which is solid turns partly transparent, that which is strictly geometrical, organic.” 

  This quote is also referring to the two very different experiences that the spaces enclose. The curves were created by steam bending, which must have taken an excruciatingly long time. Especially when Auttila says that it was the most delicate or difficult part. 

(When you chop down an acre of threes though, don't expect them to bend to your wishes without some work involved.)

nicolas gomez, check out that wood! week 4

This piece is called the "Reading Nest" and it was created by Mark Reigelman in Cleveland, Ohio. Made out of over 10,000 discarded and reused wooden boards, the structure is meant to symbolize growth, community, and knowledge while serving as a "visual intermediary between forest and fowl" (The Reading Nest, Ignant.com description).

What interests me about this work is how it attempts to understand the natural process of a bird nest and mimick it with discarded wood. Creating a certain order and clarity through the disorder of the wooden planks makes the project a different approach to wooden construction that usually tends to be more structured and organized.

Carter Nelson: Looking Out Week 05

The Lantern pavilion in Norway by Atelier Oslo in Langgata, Sandnes, Norway showcases some of the incredible structural and aesthetic qualities wood construction can inspire. This project exists as a canopy over a multipurpose space that engages the viewer through its form and the diffusion of light that it creates. It salutes vernacular Norwegian architecture while creating some modern structural forms as well as unique connection details.





See more HERE.

Looking Out Week 4_ Sophie Riedel

While running out of material for blog posts on the use of wood in architecture seems impossible, I feel it necessary too look outside the typical definition of wood as timber. After researching Beech Trees, an indigenous tree to our New Hampshire site, I've found a plentiful load of images and factoids (not just three) that interested me, whether they relate to an architectural scale or not.

1. London's Hyde Park famous "upside down tree" is an European Beech. While not actually upside down, the low hanging branches seems to dumps their leaves onto the grassy floor allowing for kids and hunched-over parents to occupy the canopy space, tangling themselves in the hip branches of this see and be-seen landmark of London. While European Beech's are faster growing, the American Beech is what is located on our site and is better suited to warm climates.














2. Daniel Boone,Western folk hero famous for shooting panthers and settling the west, vandalized a Beech tree in the late 1700's and it is now on display in Louisville, Kentucky. With a life span of over 300 yrs, Beech trees, known for their smooth silvery gray bark don the carved names of centuries of hikers, lovers, and hooligans with sharp objects. Similar to a bathroom stall wall or light post, these trunks can be used to as a part of our social landscape.

3. I just had to include these because WHAAAAAA (some curzy 50's ads)

Horace Hou: Looking Out Week 4

Soren Korsgaard and Daniel Nielsen created this piece, the organic cube. These architects created a wooden structure through the use of sticks. The free flowing organic shape created by the sticks split the cube into two, one open to the public and the other closed off. Its interesting how the sticks can impact how light affects the cube, as the sun moves across the sky and according to where the viewer stands it can affect how sunlight penetrates the cube creating ever-changing beams of light.