This house is a sculptural object that lives in its relationship with light. Interaction perfect, calibrated, plastics between mass and generate a light directed by dense shadows, defined safe. The intervention is in a degraded site.

It is an almost alien presence, in terms of quality compared to the context, and is also a sign of redemption, proactive, able to witness the possibility of an alternative way to build, intelligent, sensitive to the territory in which you insert.

Architects: Iodice Architetti (Francesco Iodice, Giuseppe Iodice, Orsola Pezone, Marcello Silvestre)
Location: Aversa, Italy
Programme: Private Residence
Collaborators: Donatello Diana, Stefano Sembiante
Construction year: 2008

The ground floor houses the living area and consists of a single environment, fluid, open, designed in direct continuity with the outside areas. The upper body accepts the sleeping area. The two plans are linked in connection with a generous skylight made up of large travoni reinforced concrete on sight.

” Zaha’s newly opened Alpine funicular railways at Austria’s top ski resport in Innsbruck has been enthusiastically received by the world’s media. Connecting the town centre to a nearby mountain resort. The innovative carriages, have an exo-skeleton with five gimballed passenger pods hanging within to accommodate inclines of 42 degrees.

The Nordpark Cable Railway comprising of four new stations and a cable-stayed suspension bridge over the river Inn was opened in a ceremony at Loewenhaus Station, Rennweg, Innsbruck on 01 December 2007. Starting at the station of Congress in the centre of the city, the railway travels to Loewenhaus station before crossing the river, ascending the Nordkette Mountain north of Innsbruck to Alpenzoo station.

The final station is at Hungerburg village, 288 metres above Innsbruck, where passengers can join the cable-car to the summit of the Seegrube Mountain. Zaha Hadid Architects won the competition to replace Nordpark Cable Railway in 2005 together with the contractor Strabag. The railway is the second project completed by Zaha Hadid in the city; the Bergisel Ski Jump by Hadid was completed in 2002 and awarded the Gold Medal for Design by the International Olympic Committee in 2005. Zaha Hadid explains that the design for each station adapts to the specific site conditions at various altitudes, whilst maintaining the coherent overall architectural language of fluidity.

This approach was critical to the design for the railway, and demonstrates the seamless morphology of Hadid’s most recent architecture. The architects used state-of-the-art design and manufacturing technologies developed for the automotive industry to create the streamlined aesthetics of each station. The Nordpark Cable Railway continues Hadid’s quest for an architecture of seamless fluidity, representing Zaha Hadid Architects’ very latest contribution to the current global architectural discourse in digital design and construction.”

Architect: Heinz Legler
Location: Yelapa, Mexico
Client: Verana, Hotel&Spa
Construction year: 2007
Constructed Area: 5 x 1 sqm
Interior Area: 92 sqm
Budget: USD$79,000
Photographs: Martin Kunz

An amazing jungle retreat near the fishing village of Yelapa in tropical Mexico ” V Houses “. This rustic-modern aesthetic hotel was designed by Heinz Legler, who used to own a film set construction company and Veronique Lievre, previously a set decorator, from Paris. They started this project as their personal hideaway, but it ended up construction an hotel in a 5 acre area, with infinity pool, spa, restaurants, yoga hut and 8 guest rooms.

This year they expanded their hotel with V-Houses, 5 units with 3 units for hotel staff, 2 for guests, a kitchen and a shared bathroom. This three tower-houses have a particular structure, raising from a small concrete foundation as you can see on the construction pictures. The V Houses are made out of steel, plywood and red corrugated iron roofs.

The idea to build those ‘outlooks’ came from Jo Scheer who had build his ‘hoochs’ in Puerto Rico and Oregon. He used mainly Bamboo or Douglas fir poles; we decided to use metal instead. With basically no environmental impact or foot print, those structures can be built on any type of surface condition. Flat ground, steep hills, lots of vegetation, trees, water, sand or whatever else might be in the way for any other design or construction.

With 16’ off the ground they also created an instant spectacular view where there normally wouldn’t be one. Each room has a floor size of 16’x16’ but since all walls tilt outwards the actual space when standing is increased to 18’x18’ and by the time you look at the ceiling we are at 21’x21’.

The houses are self contained. Solar panels on top, compost toilets and all grey water is treated and reused in our gardens. Since it was an experiment there is room for improvements and definitely a learning curve. Disadvantage, this type of design and construction would have never been approved by any building department in US.

The location is on the edge of the planned 650 apartments which was finished year ago. Also this apartment block is social type and was sold to Slovenian Housing Fund.

The given urban plot of the building was 4 floors high, 58 meters long and 15 in width.
Since the orientation of the building is towards the busy highway the apartment opening together with balconies are shifted as 30 degrees window-wings towards the quieter and south orientated side. In the future also 2 more blocks are planned on both longitudinal sides; therefore there are no direct windows towards east and west. Each apartment has view towards its own balcony, sometimes there is also a glazed loggia. On this way intimacy is created and there will be no direct views from ones apartment directly to the others in the opposite block.

Apartments are of different sizes - from 30m2 studio flats up to 3 room apartment of 70m2. Bigger apartments are developed on the front facades and have nicer views and corner orientation. They are made of economic but quality materials such as wooden oak floors, granite tiled bathrooms and have large windows with external metal blinds. The concept of structure is made in a way, that floor plans are flexible, since only structural walls are those, that separate apartment shell from the rest of the building. All other inner walls are non-structural.

Long after the elevations were planned many people associated them to Tetris game. And so the building got its name. The façade was developed simply - just tracing the floor plan organization.

The inner - structural façade wall has plaster; the external wall that embraces the loggia is glazed or wrapped into precast panel. These panels are wooden of three colors that are tracing the vertical zigzag pattern. Balcony fences are either perforated precast panel or transparent metal fence.

Detail Project :

Architect: OFIS arhitekti
Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Design Year: 2005-2006
Construction Year: 2006-2007
Project leaders: Rok Oman & Špela Vide?nik
Design Team: Martina Lipicer - udia, Nejc Batistic - udia, Andrej Gregoric - cand.arh, Ana Kosi - stud.arch.
Programme: Social apartments with parking
Client: Gradis G group, Ljubljana
Constructed Area: 5,000 sqm
Nº of floors: 4 floors + 2 underground parking
Budget: Construction: 650 EURO/sqm (US $1,020)
Ceilling: 1,200 EURO/sqm (US $1,880)
Photographs: Tomaz Gregoric

Toyota is a well known brand when we speak about cars, and is best known for its top-selling cars like the Prius and Corolla, but did you knew that Toyota also makes homes ? Until now I didn’t know that, and they’ve been in the business of making homes for over 20 years! Right now Toyota is looking to apply its eco friendly image and technical know-how to help boost sales of its small and little-known prefabricated-housing division. The Toyota Homes unit accounts for only 0.5% of the company’s $262 billion in annual sales, and Toyota would like to beef that up a little bit.

Toyota’s aspirations as a home builder are also gaining new importance with the planned launch by 2010 of its plug-in vehicles, gas-electric hybrid cars with powerful lithium-ion batteries that drivers will need to recharge at home. The car maker is testing an electricity-monitoring system in its homes that would charge the vehicle during off-peak hours to keep utility bills low, while the car’s battery can serve as an electrical backup, powering the home during blackouts.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Toyota Homes are built from six or more modules in under 45 days. They have a conservative home model called the Smart Stage that sells for $200k. It’s about a 1000 sf, two-story home. There’s also a more expensive, custom-built 2600 sf home that sells for around $800k. Toyota Homes are strong and guaranteed for about 60 years, which is twice the average lifespan of a home in Japan. Find more about Toyota homes on their website.