Architectural Eyecandy - Photos, drawings, models of buildings and urban spaces

[ac3r]

I thought I'd start a thread where we can share photos and other media of nice buildings and urban spaces from around the world. The purpose is to just show off what you personally like - and what you'd like to see in Waterloo Region! There is a severe lack of good design here despite having a prestigeous architecture school located in our region (and many well designed buildings to boot), but with developers' addiction to prefab EIFS we're seeing more bad than good.

Feel free to share photographs of buildings and models, as well as CAD drawings, renderings or even video of anything you fancy. Feel free to embed images and information, or just provide a link to a convenient source.

[ac3r]

To start things off, then, here is a small project located in Baitazhen (I think?), People's Republic of China showcasing a structure that has occupied the space of an old village building, combining some of the original structures with a modern building that acts as something akin to a community centre for the village. The design is simple yet elegant, pairing quite well with the old walls of the structures once used to cultivate mushrooms.

In the context of rural revitalization, the construction of public spaces in rural areas is being extensively advocated. Many renewal practices, however, overlook the unique living environment and regional characteristics of rural areas, neglect the exploration of local village culture and the social aspect of public spaces. This had led to the destruction of the original state of the villages, the erasure of their historical memory, and ultimately the loss of precious indigenous cultural resources in rural areas.

In the perspective of ancient Chinese architectural philosophy, buildings always align with nature, and the construction of space and materials constantly undergo renewal, evolution, and succession along with nature. From this perspective, vernacular architecture can be seen as an original "natural prototype", which is a natural form that spontaneously grows from the land over time.

The Villagers' Home in Wanghu Village is located at the easternmost plot of Baita Town, Xianju County, Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, adjacent to the road and facing a small river. By leveraging the tourist resources of Xianju County and the village's original material and environmental advantages, the local government hopes to revive this ancient village through the construction of public spaces in the Villagers' Home.

Wanghu Village is located in a mountainous area with fertile soil and abundant agricultural products. The current rammed earth walls are remnants of the mud houses that villagers used to cultivate mushrooms. With the advancement of modern technology and the lack of rural productivity, the memories of past production have gradually been phased out or even forgotten. The abandoned historical fragments are witnesses of time. The walls still bear traces of former windows and doorways, allowing people to imagine their past usage.

The Villagers' Home in Wanghu Village translates traditional folk houses through spatial and construction patterns, infusing historical memory into the architecture to sustain the original prototype. The overall form of the sloping roof block is placed within the existing old walls, allowing the Villagers' Home to naturally "grow" out of the old walls. The new building and the old walls complement each other, creating a harmonious interplay of visibility and invisibility. Furthermore, on the site of the third mushroom breeding house, the previously existing third house has been recreated, reviving the labor scenes of the past on this piece of land and evoking collective work memories among the villagers.

Currently, there is a scarcity of public spaces in the village that can meet the needs of preserving collective culture and fulfilling the material and cultural needs of the villagers. Considering the limited land availability, the activity center occupies a relatively small area and has diverse functions that can be flexibly adjusted. A multifunctional exhibition hall has been built to accommodate various activities, including village meetings, receptions, sports and fitness, and leisure activities such as movie screenings for the villagers.


The versatile functions increase the utilization time of the building. For example, during the day, it can be used for commercial purposes or provide reading spaces for children, and in the evening, it can be used for movie screenings for the villagers. Additionally, the multifunctional exhibition hall also serves as a space for visual and textual exhibitions, showcasing the historical context of the village and the processing techniques of mushrooms. By emphasizing on the full-time utilization of the building, it aims to achieve adaptability and sustainability in its functionality.

[ac3r]

Façade design is a major issue in Waterloo Region as we all know. So many buildings in this area suffer from low quality materials combined with low effort design. Here's one apartment building I recently fell in love with that, materially speaking, is quite simple. But the way in which it is used is elegant and welcoming. Designed by Vincent Parreira for his firm AAVP Architecture, this is a residential building located in Paris, France.

Midrise buildings such as this, using unique façade design, should be way more prominent across the region. It's not a challenge to do. It would be nice to see blocks of beautiful buildings occupying all the urban voids in the region, but alas.

A simple but essential question guides the conception of Tolbiac: what is housing? Housing should elevate the individual to the rank of inhabitant of the world, install a home and in the city, connect to yesterday and tomorrow, let us contemplate the near and distant elsewhere, structure our views, let us touch the mineral and the woody, the light and the dark, be caressing and rough, clear and blurred, welcoming like a hotel and simple like a shelter, make us big and small at the same time.

A good housing building would know how to calm the metropolitan agitation without extinguishing it, how to make a private salon and a public place, how to be both a hut and a palace, how to cultivate the good life and let the weeds grow, how to watch over the sleep of the inhabitant and make the passer-by dream. Without ignoring the functional dimensions of architecture, the Tolbiac project attempts to take housing towards the multiple forms of living, by exploring the expressiveness of materials, the potential of common spaces, the openings of the landscape and the arrangement of typologies, the relationship to the place
and its history.

The duality of wood and concrete guides the design of the project. The mechanical qualities of concrete, its resistance to fire and its acoustic attenuation capabilities led to its use in the structure. Larch wood is used as cladding on all surfaces, while the structures of the wood- frame walls and the vertical uprights of the facade are made of Douglas fir. The visible wood elements acquire a dark color by autoclave treatment, evoking the facades of the old warehouses of industrial Paris. The tactile qualities of the material as well as its visual qualities are highlighted. Solid wood was preferred to glued laminated wood for the posts of the facade, with the intention of enhancing the qualities of the material, developing an architectural aspect reminiscent of the natural origin of this element, breaking with the products reconstituted by gluing usually used in wood construction. Glued laminated elements are used very occasionally for the creation of curved beams carrying common spaces. Metal is used for the railings, with a gunmetal finish that integrates it into the whole.

The distinction between architecture and construction is often seen in the details. A subtle play regulates the placement of the vertical posts of the balconies. They do not follow a regular pattern, as one might think at first glance, but are offset laterally and vertically by ten centimeters at each level, gradually corbelling onto the street space. The device animates the façade and increases the surface of the balconies with the increase of the floors. This grid that unites the different blocks on the street side absorbs the voids left between each block. On the courtyard side, the interstices become common spaces, both terraces and plazas, with hoppers visually linking the different levels and the addition of extraordinary elements, such as "nests", hanging lounges shared by the residents. The maze of circulation revisits the joyful disorder and surprises of the backyards of the industrial suburbs of Paris. Two years of pandemics help to measure the value of these spaces open to all residents, offering an alternative to home, and allowing all residents to enjoy the views of the city. The roof garden open to all opens at 240° on a panorama piling up several decades of the evolution of Paris, and on the sky.