Exbury Egg - floating Architecture designed for the future

We've come to share the interesting concept of Exbury Egg, executed by the artist Stephen Turner. It consists on a floating structure that acts both as an artistic piece and as a case study for future/expectable needs of human beings, taking into account climate changes and consequent rising of the sea level. All texts and images presented belong to Stephen Turner and can be found at the project's website.

"The Exbury Egg will be  a temporary, energy efficient self-sustaining work space for artist Stephen Turner in the estuary of the River Beaulieu. It is a place to stay and a laboratory for studying the life of a tidal creek, a collecting and collating centre with integral storage & display areas. It will take on the patina of 730 daily tides below the water line, and 365 days of weathering by wind, rain and bleaching by the sun above.

The Egg will be ‘tethered’ like a boat and will rise and fall with the tide. The light touch and basic nature of the 'Exbury Egg' aims to re-appraise the way we live; to properly consider sustainably and future use of natural resources. Stephen Turner is interested in exploring a more empathic relationship with nature which reveals the precious and transcendent in everyday life. The artwork created will stem from Stephen’s occupation, developing through direct experience an understanding of local natural cycles and processes and the relationship of the environment to the narratives of human activity in the unending calendar of seasonal life."

ARCHITECTURE REFERENCES: Emporia, by Wingårdhs

Emporia
Malmo, Sweden
Wingårdhs,Sweden

Area: 270.000 sqm

Year: 2012

Photos: Tord-Rikard Söderström

Project's description on ArchDaily:

"Emporia is first and foremost an urban planning project in which offices, housing, and retail come together in a mixed-use development along Boulevarden and Stationsgatan in Hyllie, on the south side of Malmö. The main idea of our winning competition entry was to hide inward-looking retail behind a wreath of residential and commercial buildings. The whole shopping complex would thereby eventually become integrated into the fabric of the city.

 

It is a huge development, of which only the corner building with the Amber Entrance has yet been completed. This entrance will be the only part of the Emporia shopping center that remains visible when the development is completely built out. The idea of lining the streets with mixed-use buildings demanded a strong form that could attract visitors from Station Square to come in and shop. A sequence of vaults from a previous competition proposal, along with a memory from the Pantheon, reemerged in a bronze-ochre tone. Double-bent glass encloses the diagonal slit that cuts through the building. Here the weather of the Öresund Strait, its fast-moving clouds chasing glimpses of sun, becomes present and tangible.

 

The diagonal entrance from Hyllie Station Square leads deep into the block. Inside, retail is organized around a three-story figure eight. Shops are grouped together around boldly colored atriums, each with a different theme. On the north side of the complex, a ramp leads into a rainbow-colored parking garage (for 2500 cars) with direct access to the figure eight. To the east is a surface parking lot (for 500) right outside the supermarket.

 

The rooftop park is designed as a bit of cultivated nature. Its vegetation (sedum, prairie grass, and trees) and its sun-facing, wind-sheltered patios are accessible from both inside and outside the building. The hills that provide protection from the wind are actually hiding mechanical rooms. In the future the roof will be developed with outdoor dining and a spa facility—like amusement parks, shopping centers need to offer new attractions at regular intervals. Emporia can expand upward and to the west, but not in any of the other directions. The freestanding residential buildings facing Boulevarden have yet to be built, as do those that will stand atop the podium along Stationsgatan on the south side.

 

Emporia’s interior challenges established shopping center conventions. Its bold colors and bent sightlines break with the norm, as do the project’s size and ambition—which have made it possible to do custom designs for everything from ceilings, floors, and storefronts to signage, ropes of hanging plants, furniture, and cast glass door handles. Our motto has been “no intermediate scale”—because that is the realm of the products on display. Large-scale patterns and intricate details characterize the interior. The terrazzo floor is typical of this approach, with its oversized triangular joint pattern, its gradual shift from white to graphite in seven steps, and its flashing inclusions of colored mirror glass. The design has been wrought with extraordinary attention to detail, down to the leather-wrapped handrails and the color of the stitching on the built-in seating.

 

Emporia also includes a quantity of art seldom seen in a commercial environment. A lighting installation (ninety-nine bollards) by Petteri Nisunen and Tommi Grönlund lifts the Amber Entrance, bronze sculptures by Joep van Lieshout and a glass art piece (4 x 81 m) by Silja Rantanen adorn the Sea Entrance, and a line painting on film at an extremely outsized format (20 x 114 m) by Per Mårtensson clads the façade of the parking garage. On the interior is a series of photos by Signe Maria Andersen."

-  Wingårdhs

 

Projects Wanted - MB HOUSE, by Brito.Rodriguez

The Architecture office Brito.Rodriguez was the first one to accept our "Projects Wanted" invitation. The office of the Portuguese architect Inês Brito and the American architect Gilberto Rodriguez sent us their MB HOUSE project, located in Óbidos, Portugal. Together with some photos of the project, Brito.Rodriguez sent us the respective descriptive text.

Our blog is open to receive projects from Architecture offices all around, it's our pleasure to help spreading new Architecture.

"THE INTERVENTION PROVIDES A SILENT DIALOGUE WITH THE SURROUNDINGS, A SIMPLE EXPRESSION IN A LANDSCAPE CHARACTERIZED BY CONTINUOUS AND STEADY PASTORAL HILLS. THERE ARE SPACES OF INTIMACY, REFLECTION AND CONTEMPLATION DIRECTING THE VIEW OUTWARDS AND BEYOND ITS LIMITS TO EXPERIENCE THE SUBTLE SENSORY IMPRESSIONS OF THE PLACE.

THE SITE HAS A DEEP SENSE OF TRANQUILITY, A PLACE WHERE THE AIR IS CLEAN, LIGHT AND GENTLE. AT THIS LOCATION, A HORIZONTAL GESTURE WAS INTRODUCED TO ENHANCE THE LANDSCAPE AND TO EMPHASIZE THE INTRINSIC QUALITIES OF THE ENVIRONMENT.

TWO VOLUMES ARTICULATED BY THE MAIN ENTRANCE, REACH THEIR GREATEST EXPRESSIONS IN THE NUANCES OF LIGHT AND SHADOW. THE WHITE VOLUMETRIC COMPOSITION ACCENTUATES ITS LIGHTNESS AND THE RELATIONSHIP IT SEEKS TO ACHIEVE WITH THE SERENE ATMOSPHERE."

- Brito.Rodriguez

About Brito.Rodriguez (taken from the office's website):

 

Brito.Rodriguez is focused on designing cultural buildings, public environments and private houses.

The studio arises from the need to deepen their interests, concepts and ideas related to architecture, art and landscape; a natural journey that is marked by the participation in numerous international competitions.  From different cultural backgrounds, Inês Martins de Brito (Lisbon) and Gilberto Rodriguez (Texas) have over the years absorbed different influences that complement one another.  From Lisbon, the studio absorbs the history, materiality, overlapping elements, light and water.  From Texas, they receive the influence of the void, subtlety, anonymous architecture integrated into the landscape and the horizontality of spatial continuity.

Inês and Gilberto are both architects with a strong international background, their professional paths crossed in Olot, Spain while working at the office of RCR Arquitectes.  Their work has received international recognition with projects awarded in Mexico, Peru, Portugal and Spain. The studio has also been widely published and exhibited in England, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Peru.

Amongst the awarded and published works are the Site Museum, Castle Environment, Lodge Museum, Casa MB and Earth Pavilion. In 2012, Brito.Rodriguez were guest lecturers of ‘Subtle Gestures’ at the “Sapienza” Università di Rome, Italy and were soon selected by the renown publication Wallpaper* for the Architects Directory _ 20 young emerging international architectural practices.

Currently working in Lisboa, they collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team that varies in size relating to the scale and complexity of each project.  During the development of a project, they focus on the concepts inherent to the identity of a space while interpreting the specific context and conditions of the environment. With a conceptual vision and rigorous approach, the goal is to reach an integrated expression between architecture and landscape.

PROJECTS WANTED is a DIMSCALE's initiative to communicate new Architecture from all around the world.

Send us your projects to david.cardoso@dimscale.com.