#blurring boundaries

When Mumbai-based architects Shriya Parasrampuria and Prashant Dupare decided to initiate their own practice in 2019, both having graduated in 2007 from JJ School of Architecture, the chief factor that brought them together was their joint passion and vision of blurring the boundaries between built and unbuilt spaces. The young architects, not surprisingly, chose to call their practice Blurring…

A new collaborative project wants us to rethink India, social media, and even art

[ad_1]

Written by Benita Fernando | Mumbai | October 9, 2020 2:10:22 pm

A photo-manipulation from the series Residual Gaze by Sanket Jadia, which led Arshi Irshad Ahmadzai to make Babar Ka Shikasta Khwaab-O-Chand (Photos: Sanket Jadia and Arshi Irshad Ahmadzai)

Showing this month is Blurring Boundaries, a virtual art project that is…

In 1965 Richard Meier completed the Meier House for his parents nestled in a natural setting in Essex Fells. Large glass walls bring the beauty of nature inside blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior while large brick walls block the building off from the street, creating a sense of privacy.

Jerome & Carolyn Meier House Technical Information

Architects: Richard Meier

Location: 183 Devon Rd, Essex Fells, New Jersey, USA

Topics: American Houses, Pritzker, Brick

Area: 2,936 sqft m2

Project Year: 1963-1965

Photographs: © Ezra Stoller / ESTO, © Richard Meier

Le Corbusier was a great influence, but there are many influences and they are constantly changing. Frank Lloyd Wright was a great architect, and I could not have done my parent’s house the way that I did, without being overwhelmed by Falling Water. […] A Miesian brick house under a Frank Lloyd Wright roof.

– Richard Meier

Jerome & Carolyn Meier House Photographs

© Ezra Stoller / ESTO

© Ezra Stoller / ESTO

© Ezra Stoller / ESTO

© Ezra Stoller / ESTO

Text by the Architects

This house, the first commission in private practice, stands on a one-acre suburban lot in a typical residential neighborhood of pseudo-colonial homes. The owners wanted a one-story house. The masonry bearing walls and their large glass openings are capped with a wide parapet that encloses a roof garden. The brick walls block the building off from the street, creating a sense of privacy; the interior looks out on an enclosed courtyard, as well as a golf course on the adjacent site.

The inset courtyard and curving brick walls that extend beyond the building corners protect and shape the views for privacy and open the inside of the house to light and the seasons through skylights and clerestories. Sunlight and shadow inundate the interior, producing a sense of space and quietude.

The house turns inward, away from its suburban neighbors. It is like an urban courtyard house, reflecting the owner’s swish for privacy and isolation.

My mother always said everything was perfect except for one thing—there weren’t enough closets.

– Richard Meier

Other Photographs

Exterior of the House in 2010

Garden of the House in 2010

Interior of the House in 2010

Jerome & Carolyn Meier House Plans

© Richard Meier

Jerome & Carolyn Meier House Image Gallery

© Ezra Stoller / ESTO

© Ezra Stoller / ESTO

© Ezra Stoller / ESTO

© Ezra Stoller / ESTO

© Ezra Stoller / ESTO

© Ezra Stoller / ESTO

© Ezra Stoller / ESTO

Exterior of the House in 2010

Garden of the House in 2010

Interior of the House in 2010

© Richard Meier

About Richard Meier

At 49, Richard Meier was the youngest architect to receive his profession’s highest accolade, the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Shortly after receiving that honor, he was awarded what is probably one of the twentieth century’s most important commissions, the design of The Getty Center, the Los Angeles art complex funded by the J. Paul Getty Trust. Other works from Richard Meier  

[cite]

Leonardo da Vinci would not survive in your organization

By | Abhijit Bhaduri |Keynote speaker, Author and Columnist

The new decade needs polymaths like the Italian artist who can work across disciplines in organisations

I have always been fascinated with Leonardo da Vinci. The Italian polymath lived during the Renaissance. He had a wide range of interests, from drawing, painting, sculpture and architecture to science, music, mathematics, engineering,…

In 1952 Jorn Utzon completed his first building in Helsingør in Denmark’s northern Zealand. Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, this one-story home was built for Utzon and his family. With no windows in the bedrooms (only skylights), it was designed with the harsh Danish weather in mind and was where Utzon began studies for the Sydney Opera House.

Utzon’s House Technical Information

Architects: Jørn Utzon

Location: Hellebæk, Denmark

Topics: Blurring Boundaries, Brick

Type: Private House

Project Year: 1952

Area: 130 m2

Photographs: © seier + seier

The simple, primitive life in the country; trips into mountains with skis or guns, sailing trips, a few weeks together with Arabs in the mountains and the desert, a visit to North America and Mexico, the lifestyle of the Indians – all this has formed the basis for the way of life my wife and I have wanted to lead, and thus for the design of the house.

– Jørn Utzon

Utzon’s House Photographs

© seier + seier

© seier + seier

© seier + seier

Interior of the House

When Utzon returned from America, he built his first home in Hellebæk, a small seaside Danish town across the channel from Sweden. The house was built five years before Utzon won the Sydney Opera House competition in 1957.

Apart from a water tower in Svaneke on Bornholm, this was Utzon’s first completed work, although he had already won many competitions. During the Second World War, Utzon went to Stockholm to study the work of Gunnar Asplund. In the winter of 1943–44, there was an exhibition of modern American architecture where Utzon was particularly taken by Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses, which led him to study Wright’s work in more detail. Wright’s concern with nature and the characteristics of each building site, as well as the need for attention to internal and external space, convinced him that each project required its unique approach.

When Utzon started building the house on the edge of Hellebæk Forest just outside the small town of Hellebæk, it was rumored that an innovative approach to one-family homes was in the making. Architects of considerable repute visited the site to monitor progress. Utzon himself directed the building work without any technical plans. As the building developed, he would often change its shape, rather like building a sandcastle. He had learned this approach in Finland in 1946 when he had spent a few months with Alvar Aalto, who had used the same method for his Villa Mairea. Aalto maintained it was the most economical solution for his client

We started with a couple of full-scale models made of canvas and board, which gave us an impression of our 130 square meters (the maximum for one-family houses in Denmark) and the possibilities there were for contact with the natural spaces around us: sun, view, shelter and so on. The result of the experiment with the models was that we adopted the principle of a completely closed north side and a completely open glass wall to the south-southwest.

– Jørn Utzon

The house was built with 1.2 m x 1.2 m modules, which could be subdivided into 12 cm subunits, which were the length of the bricks. He never cut them or used any particular pieces, reminding us of the artisan principles at the School of Fine Arts.

A long, narrow, one-story building with a flat roof, it rises slightly above the gently sloping site on a brick platform. The southern facade consists solely of windows, allowing lots of light into the open-plan living room with a freestanding fireplace. The bedrooms have no windows apart from skylights.

After experimenting with a few models, Utzon tells us he first built a full-size wooden version of the house to gain an impression of how a home with 130 square meters of living space would look in practice.

Careful consideration was given to the surroundings: sun, view, and shelter from the wind. The result was that he decided to have a wholly closed wall along the northern side and an open glass wall for the southern facade.

The builders agreed to work under Utzon’s direction without plans. The north wall was first completed to establish the underlying geometry. The kitchen and bathroom were then added, and the remaining rooms were arranged with movable pinewood partitions and doors to facilitate any subsequent alterations. The materials used inside and outside are the same: yellow-white bricks, Oregon pine, and aluminum. Yellow tiling is used both at the top of the walls — with hard-baked tiles — and in the kitchen, grill niche and shower as well as for the fireplace. The absence of windows in the children’s rooms along the north wall has been mentioned as a possible disadvantage, but skylights lit them.

Utzon’s summed up his ideas about the house when he commented: “What is important for me is that the architectonic approach or system behind a house should not limit the house’s function and thereby hamper life inside.” 2

Utzon’s House Plans

True North Floor Plan

Section

Utzon’s House Image Gallery

#gallery-0-4 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; } #gallery-0-4 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

© seier + seier

© seier + seier

© seier + seier

© seier + seier

© seier + seier

© seier + seier

True North Floor Plan

Floor Plan

Section

About Jørn Utzon 

Danish architect Jørn Utzon was born in 1918. An admirer of the ideas of Gunnar Asplund, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright while still in school, Utzon acknowledges that Aalto, Asplund, and Wright were all significant influences in his work. Most of Utzon’s projects have been completed in his native Denmark, but he is best known for the Sydney Opera House, an iconic building of curving roof forms. Construction began in 1959 and was not complete until 1973, and Utzon left the project in 1966 after bitter arguments with Australian officials regarding cost and schedule issues. Other works from Jørn Utzon 

Utzon, Jørn. “Own house in Hellebæk” in Byggekunst, 5. 1981.

Text from Wikipedia available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

[cite]

Completed in 2019 by Formafatal Architects, Atelier Villa is a minimalistic tropical house in Costa Rica. The project is part of the Art Villas Resort, which includes villas done in collaboration with Refuel works and Archwerk studio.

Atelier Villa Technical Information

Architects: Formafatal

Team: Dagmar Štěpánová, Martina Homolková

Location: Bahia Ballena, Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica

Topics: Blurring boundaries, Tropical Architecture

Area: 326 m2

Site size: 25 000 m2

Project Year: 2017 – 2019

Collaborators: Atelier Flera, Different Design, Můj Originál

Photographs: © BoysPlayNice

The first and foremost priority is not only the idea of “erasing boundaries between interior and exterior” but also highlighting constructional simplicity and pure lines. Pura Vida; Pura Arquitectura.

– Formafatal Architects

Atelier Villa in Costa Rica Photographs

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

Text by the Architects

Art Villas Costa Rica

Not far from Costa Rican town Uvita – there is a hidden small resort Art Villas on the jungle hill above the beach Playa Hermosa. Three unique villas and one multifunctional pavilion are scattered over a plot of 2 ha. When the investor approached the architects, he wished to create a place where the visitors merge with the surrounding nature, clearing their mind, experiencing luxury and adventure at the same time. He wanted to create a place that digs deep into everyone’s heart when they taste it. The architects from the Formafatal studio followed the client’s assignment and were also inspired by the atmosphere and colorfulness of Central and South America.

Atelier Villa

Atelier Villa was designed as a private residence for the investor and his family. Nestled against a steep slope, the 26-meter-long prismatic object partially levitates over lush tropical vegetation. Looking outside, there is only the distant ocean or green hills as far as the eye can see; the back wall facing the driveway and the neighboring villas is intentionally windowless, to maintain privacy. The first and foremost priority is not only the idea of “erasing boundaries between interior and exterior” but also highlighting constructional simplicity and pure lines (Pura Vida >> Pura Arquitectura).

The constructional system consists of a steel frame with a span of 4x4m. Discreet wall colors, in combination with the green roof, allow the villa to blend in with its surroundings. The ocean and jungle-oriented façades are fitted with large-size aluminum perforated sections, which a) do not heat up in the sun, and b) are rust-resistant. If pulled up, they double as canopies.

The scale and pattern of the perforations are different in each of the sections, thus creating an exciting play of light and shadow inside. The panels’ special coating is in the color of COR-TEN. The full-back wall is in charred timber cladding treated with Shou Sugi Ban, an old Japanese technique of weather- and age-proofing the wood.

Disposition-wise, the villa possesses the same minimalistic spirit as its shape suggests. The utility and storage rooms, bathrooms, and the kitchen are placed along the back wall. The layout of the rest of the house is very open; the boundaries between the inside and the outside world are gone, and the whole space seems like a roofed terrace. Lightweight sliding partition walls may serve as a tool to create private zones and shake the space up as needed. The patio reveals an infinity pool, partly roofed and therefore protected from the scorching sun.

The whole interior is in warm, earthy tones of natural materials. All of the furnishings, apart from the lounge and dining chairs, are tailor-designed for this villa and custom-made. Commissioned in the area, the major part of the furniture was made with the help of local artisans. Some components were custom-made in the Czech Republic and transported to the site. As for the Czech manufacturers, we decided to opt for the renowned Czech glass-making company Bomma and their Shibari lights that go hand in hand with the overall tropical feel of the interiors.

Atelier Villa in Costa Rica Plans

Floor Plan | © Formafatal

Atelier Villa in Costa Rica Image Gallery

#gallery-0-4 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; } #gallery-0-4 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

© BoysPlayNice

Floor Plan | © Formafatal

About Formafatal

Formafatal is a team of architects, designers, and scenographers based in the Czech Republic and founded by architect Dagmar Stepanova.

[cite]