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In the spirit of supporting our readers’ design work, the company Velux has shared a series of .DWG files with us of their different roofing windows models. The files can be downloaded directly from this article and include great amounts of detail and information.
Check the files below, separated into 'Pitched Roofs', 'Flat Roofs' and 'Light Tube'.
At the meeting point of the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal in Venice is a triangular plot of land, the Punta Della Dogana. On the site sits a long, low-slung 17th-century structure punctuated at its tip by a squat tower topped with an ornamental green and gold weather vane representing fortune. This former customs house of Venice, the Dogana da Mar, was purchased in 2007 by François Pinault with the intention of converting the structure into an art museum, a task he entrusted to Tadao Ando.
While the Japanese architect may not have been the obvious choice to work with a historic Italian building, Ando's solution combined a total respect for the existing building with the sharp minimalism for which he is known. Stripping back centuries of additions, the building was largely restored to its original structure. At the heart of the building's deep plan, a pure concrete volume hints at the architect of the restoration, serving to organize the spaces around it. In 2013, the building was photographed by Luca Girardini on the occasion of the exhibition "Elogio del dubbio."
2017 is in the past. Nevertheless, the year has left us a series of lessons, new wisdom and better tools to help us face the challenges of 2018. What surprises will this year bring us?
We asked our editors at Plataforma Arquitectura (ArchDaily's Spanish arm) to make predictions based on what they've learnt in 2017, and to share with readers the topics they expect to be in the limelight in 2018.
This vertical cladding for facades is a high-density laminated panel, composed of a core of paper fibers -compressed at high temperature and pressure- and an outer coating highly resistant to weathering and UV radiation. The wood used in the panels has been treated with Everlook®, a component that - without the need for maintenance - extends the useful life of the panel and the stability of its color regardless of weather conditions.
To generate a ventilated facade with these panels, each unit must be installed on vertical profiles, producing an uninterrupted airflow behind the panel. Here's how to do it.
With over 10,000 followers, Juan Cristóbal Lara's (@eljuancri) Instagram account has become a go-to photographic essay of Chile's capital city, Santiago. His images show an urban area in which the giant Andes mountains, the city's hills, and the Mapocho River are the stars of the show. As the buildings and natural elements harness and reflect the changing light of the sun, Santiago has certified itself as one of the most photogenic cities around.
To commemorate the end of 2017, Lara published his first timelapse—a video filmed over a period of days that shows the Santiago sunset from the San Critóbal and Calán hills.
The Fundación EcoInclusión - winner of the first prize in the regional competition Google.org Challenge - is an Argentine non-profit organization that was born in 2015, from the hands of a group of young people that promote the construction of a fairer, equitable and sustainable society.
Located in the Alta Gracia city, province of Córdoba, Ecoinclusión works in the reduction of PET bottles waste with the production of bricks made of plastic residues destined to the construction in vulnerable sectors, with the aim of generating environmental and social impact and cultural participation in the communities.
The Academy Bezalel students' bamboo project, in Jerusalem, is a proposal that approaches the construction in real scale and the experimentation with materials as an important driving force of architectural design.
The project, a suspended bamboo pavilion, can be reused with different configurations in different places with its joints made up of ropes and 3D printed pieces.
Each year millions of wine enthusiasts travel the globe in search of memorable tasting experiences. And architecture-loving Oenophiles (wine aficionados) are likely to seek vineyards that not only produce outstanding libations, but also those with impressive architecture. With world-famous wines and evergrowing international renown, the vineyards of South America accommodate thousands of wine tourists each year. Chile and Argentina currently sit in the top 10 wine-exporting countries; Chile exported $1.9 billion worth of wine in 2016 and Argentina exported $816.8 million in the same year.
Separated by the Andes, the valleys surrounding Argentina's Mendoza and Chile's central valley (including Elqui, Limarí, Aconcagua, Maipo, Casablanca, Colchagua, Cachapoal, Maule and Curicó valleys) attract a high number of enotourists. The wineries and vineyards featured below have moved away from the traditional image of the historic country house in both aesthetic terms and (sometimes) in the use of materials in the winemaking process. These properties also exist in natural harmony with the surrounding landscape to make the most of sunlight, air circulation and topography for the construction of wine cellars, hotels, tasting rooms, lookouts and viewing points, and research centers. The new and vibrant architectural designs serve as innovation inspiration in their production of the wines as well.
At the end of September, we invited our Spanish-speaking readers to send us their social housing proposals completed at a university level. Social housing is still a challenge for much of Latin America and although every year hundreds of architecture students work on projects that reflect their concerns in the social housing field, its visibility is very low and its materialization is null. At a time when the Global South has pursued its own responses to its own problems, the university response on social housing should be taken into account by the State, both of whom are interested in the common good.
Out of 116 proposals received from Spain and 11 Latin American countries, this selection of 20 ideas represents the different challenges and state of the problems in social housing. While some approach Colombia's post-conflict scenario for rural inhabitants, some propose answers to the insertion of social housing in already densified areas, to which the beneficiaries tend to be relegated by the value of land and housing. Other ideas point to the reconversion of infrastructure, modulation, the integration of indigenous peoples and natural disasters.
We believe that the selection not only highlights the efforts of students and academics to address contingent problems but will also open up the discussion about social housing, often relegated only as a one-dimensional problem when in reality, poverty is multidimensional.
Downtown Studio's latest design for a street library in Bulgaria, that utilizes the tools of parametric design to create a wooden structure that is light and transportable.
The project, a natural undulating form that develops in a semicircle, is constructed by a series of wooden modules that provide a public space with shelves to store and share books.
Undoubtedly, Virtual Reality has come to stay while offering very high contributions to Architecture and Design. The possibilities offered by allowing architects, collaborators, and customers to experiment within a virtual environment, is a design tool that allows better decision making.
While VR allows the viewer to experience what it is like to be inside an environment, the 360 rendering processes the idea mimicking it to real life experiences as much as possible, trying to match specifically what the eye sees.
No matter what software you prefer to render with, below you can find some common tips and concepts that you need to manage to get good results when creating three-dimensional panoramic images to be visualized on VR.
When it comes to increasing the energy efficiency of a project, solar panels provide many benefits, but architects often avoid using them for aesthetic reasons.
Today there are alternative solutions for adding solar receptors to the individual elements that make up the roof—the zone of greatest exposure to sunlight—that are less conspicuous and very effective in terms of energy production. One such example is solar thermal panels, which use the power of the sun to heat the building, produce hot water or generate heat for pools.
These new panels are made from natural slate stone, in formats ranging from 32x22 cm to 50x25 cm. The material elements not only ensure thermal inertia and impermeability, but are also able to heat up to 50 liters of water per day per square meter of surface -- all while avoiding the average emission of 90 kg of CO2.
As part of Concéntrico 03, architects Manuel Bouzas Cavada, Manuel Bouzas Barcala and Clara Álvarez Garcí designed a temporary exhibition pavilion in the Escuelas Trevijano Plaza, with the objective of “making the unclear, transparent, and the heavy, light."
A paper sheet alone does not sustain itself, but when formed in a series of precisely folded sheets, they are capable of sustaining not only themselves but also much greater forces. With the same logic, a wooden panel does not sustain itself but when formed as a series of precisely folded wooded panels, it has the capacity to sustain not only itself but to support much more. An example of this is the information pavilion at Concéntrico 03.
Concéntrico is Logroño’s Architecture and Design Festival. It is open to residents of the city and visitors from elsewhere, and it aims to discover and rediscover spaces of interest in the city’s Historic Center. The Festival invites attendees to tour these spaces through installations that create a connection between inner courtyards, tucked-away spaces and small plazas that, in the day-to-day, tend to go unnoticed.
Since 2015 Concéntrico is being organized by La Rioja Architects Cultural Foundation (Fundación Cultural de los Arquitectos de La Rioja, FCAR), along with Javier Peña Ibáñez, the promotor of the initiative, and in collaboration with the local government of Logroño, Garnica and the Integral Design Center of La Rioja (Centro de Diseño Integral de La Rioja, CEdiR). Its goal is to prompt reflection on the city through architectural and design proposals.
In this context, DP Architects presents an ephemeral intervention in the city of Logroño. The aims of "Cada cuba huele al vino que tiene" is to be a tribute to the wine of La Rioja, soil, climate and grapes, but also the wooden barrels used in the wine’s maturation.
In 2015, after the catastrophic earthquake in Nepal, Maria da Paz invited Joao Boto Caeiro from RootStudio to design and build a model house in Nepal. Using local and accessible materials, they built two prototype houses out of bamboo and partitions, via a collaboration between locals and volunteers that came to the region.
The prototypes respond to the need for housing that is able to be built quickly with the goal of providing independence and immediate shelter, while at the same time introducing basic building techniques using bamboo and bricks. In doing so, they're able to create a set of tools that allow for future construction that the community can make themselves.
In recent years, timber construction has surpassed its previous limit of two or three stories to create buildings of much greater height. This is not only due to wood's intrinsic strength, stability, and flexibility, but also to a number of new technologies that have further increased its performance, including cross-laminated timber (CLT), nail laminated timber (NLT) and glued laminated timber (glulam).
In order to inform architects, engineers, developers, industry professionals, students, and other interested parties, reThink Wood has launched the reThink Wood Research Library, an online and open resource that will be updated frequently with information about the latest product and timber construction systems around the world, as well as showing where there are gaps that could be covered in the future.
This week marks the first anniversary of the death of Zaha Hadid, the most successful and influential female architect in the architectural discipline. Born in Baghdad (Iraq) in 1950, Hadid became the first woman to receive the Pritzker Prize in 2004, and twelve years later received the gold medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
Hadid's untimely death left a fascinating and inspiring legacy. Meanwhile her firm, Zaha Hadid Architects, continues to work on nearly a hundred projects worldwide. To remember her legacy, Spanish company Deimos Imaging has shared a series of photographs focusing on Hadid's work in five countries.
The images were captured by the Deimos-2 satellite, which was launched in 2014 and designed for very high-resolution Earth observation applications, providing multispectral images of just 75 centimeters per pixel. Hadid's incredible works take on a new dimension when you contemplate their proportions from the sky—or rather, from a satellite.
In order to support the design work of our readers, the company Teka has shared with us a series of .DWG files of its various kitchen products. The files include both 2D and 3D drawings and can be downloaded directly from this article.
Download the objects below, which have been separated into the following categories: drop-in sinks, built-in sinks, undermount sinks, built-in ovens, faucets, stoves, extractor hoods, and refrigerators.
